[Cagdu] FW: Fw: [TSE-Chat] Dog and master barred from bus files law suit.

[Tina Thomas]

Tina, Nina and Sicily 

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-----Original Message-----
From: GDUI-Friends at yahoogroups.com [mailto:GDUI-Friends at yahoogroups.com] On
Behalf Of Deb and Cori
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 4:25 PM
Subject: Fw: [TSE-Chat] Dog and master barred from bus files law suit.

Subject: [TSE-Chat] Dog and master barred from bus files law suit.


> Discrimination still takes place, after the Morris Franck pioneering 
> years, after the ADA and after thousands of successful dog handlers 
> travels hundreds of millions of miles on public transit.  When are 
> people going to get it?
>
> Mike T
>
> Bus Firm Prohibited Guide Dog, Suit Says
>
> By
>
> Sue Anne Pressley Montes
>
> Washington Post Staff Writer
>
> Thursday, March 8, 2007; Page B02
>
> Joe Orozco goes everywhere with his seeing-eye dog, Gator, a 
> relationship protected by federal law. Now Orozco has sued a Chinatown 
> bus company, claiming
>
> discrimination because employees tried to bar him and his dog from 
> boarding buses in Washington and New York.
>
> On New Year's Eve, employees of Todays Bus Inc. said Orozco could not 
> bring his dog on a bus leaving downtown Washington for Manhattan. They 
> relented only
>
> after Orozco called D.C. police, who explained federal disabilities 
> law permitting service animals to accompany their owners, according to 
> a suit filed
>
> yesterday in U.S. District Court.
>
> On Jan. 1, Orozco again met resistance as he and his dog tried to 
> board another of the company's buses for the return trip to the 
> District. That time, the
>
> suit said, they were allowed on after heated argument and a long delay 
> -- but were instructed to go to the back of the bus.
>
> Orozco said he spent the four-hour trip on the seat by the toilet, 
> feeling "humiliated."
>
> "I felt hopeless that I couldn't do anything to change what had happened,"
> he said in an interview yesterday. ". . . I thought, if I wasn't 
> blind, this
>
> wouldn't be happening. Being discriminated against was one thing, but 
> having been segregated was upsetting."
>
> Orozco, 24, is an AmeriCorps volunteer who works as a caseworker with 
> refugees in the District. His suit alleges discrimination under the 
> Americans With
>
> Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibits discrimination in services, 
> facilities or public accommodations. He seeks a federal order 
> requiring the bus company
>
> to train its staff and make a formal apology, plus monetary damages.
>
> "It's shocking that they didn't understand their obligations," said 
> Amy Metzel, an attorney with University Legal Services, the protection 
> and advocacy
>
> agency for D.C. residents with disabilities that is representing Orozco.
> "It's a very blatant case of discrimination based on disability."
>
> A man who identified himself as the son of the owner of Todays Bus, 
> located at 610 I St. NW, said yesterday that he regrets what happened, 
> attributing the
>
> problems to employees' difficulties in understanding English and their 
> lack of familiarity with the law.
>
> "We feel bad for it," Jimmy Zhang said. "It sounds like our company is 
> bad, but now our company knows what laws exist and what we must do."
>
> Orozco, a Houston native who moved to the District last year, has been 
> blind since a fall when he was 2, he said. Until he acquired Gator, a 
> 75-pound German
>
> shepherd, in July 2004, he used a white cane to get around, he said. 
> He described the dog, who came from the Seeing Eye in Morristown, 
> N.J., the country's
>
> pioneer guide dog school, as "well groomed and well trained."
>
> The incidents marred what was intended to be a New Year's holiday in 
> New York for him and four friends, he said. Because of budget 
> concerns, they opted
>
> to try Todays Bus for the first time, he said; a one-way ticket from 
> the District to New York costs $20.
>
> When Orozco reached the front of the passenger line with Gator in the 
> District, he said, an employee prevented their boarding, saying no 
> animals were allowed
>
> on the buses. Ignoring Gator's identification card as a service 
> animal, the employee told Orozco that his only choice was to put the 
> dog beneath the bus
>
> in the luggage compartment, the lawsuit alleges.
>
> "I told him that was ridiculous," Orozco said yesterday.
>
> Orozco said he has had minor problems with local store owners and 
> restaurant managers who initially tried to bar his dog, then relented 
> when he explained.
>
> "But I've never been told I couldn't get on public transportation," he 
> said.
>
> He said he took care to inform the company he would be returning the 
> next day, hoping to avoid a repeat of the first incident. But when he 
> arrived at the
>
> bus company station in Manhattan, the reaction was worse.
>
> "There was not much of an explanation beyond, 'No dogs, you can't get on,'

> "
> he said. The bus left as the argument continued, he said, and when an 
> employee
>
> said he could get on the next bus if he and the dog sat in the back, 
> he agreed.
>
> "It was cold, we were already late," he said. "The situation was such 
> that we just wanted to get home."
>
>
>
>
> Mike&Brent
> email:  mrtownsend at comcast.net
> Arlington, Virginia
> Home phone:  (571)  431-6280
> Cellular Phone:  (732)  718-9480
>
>
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10:58 AM