Plaintiff's ADA testing accommodation claim failed where the testing site attempted to implement accommodations but was interrupted when the plaintiff started a fire in the restroom.

The plaintiff asserted that the defendant violated the ADA when it failed to "[r]easonably accommodate her visual impairment" at the time she sat for an examination. Specifically, the plaintiff requested several accommodations—including a larger computer monitor, magnifying software and additional time to take the examination—in August 2011, and the defendant agreed to provide the accommodations. On the day of the test, the defendant mistakenly seated the plaintiff in a private, special accommodations room but provided her with the other accommodations requested. However, during the examination, the test administrators were required to move the plaintiff to another room and, in the process of moving her computer monitor, the monitor stand broke, and the plaintiff alleged it was unusable. The test administrators attempted to fix the monitor stand. During this time, the plaintiff visited the restroom "[a]nd started a fire because she was depressed about the lack of adequate accommodations for the test and the looming seven-year deadline for passing the test." As a result, the plaintiff was arrested on charges of arson, and the defendant was unable to implement its practice of rescheduling the examination within the next few days (because she was in jail). In rejecting the plaintiff's claims, the court expressly noted that the plaintiff "[f]ail[ed] to establish that the delay she encountered… effectively resulted in a denial of her accommodations" and that "[c]ourts addressing delays in other contexts have found no ADA violation where an entity acts in good faith to provide an accommodation."

Case Law Alert - 2nd Quarter 2013