Disabled In Action v. City Of New York

360 F. Supp. 3d 240
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedMarch 4, 2019
Docket16-CV-08354 (VEC)
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 360 F. Supp. 3d 240 (Disabled In Action v. City Of New York) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Disabled In Action v. City Of New York, 360 F. Supp. 3d 240 (S.D. Ill. 2019).

Opinion

VALERIE CAPRONI, United States District Judge

Disabled in Action of Metropolitan New York and Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled, two nonprofit organizations that provide services and advocacy for people with disabilities, along with Paula Wolff, Jean Ryan, Edith Prentiss, and Dustin Jones, New York City residents with mobility disabilities (collectively, "Plaintiffs"), filed this putative class action against the City of New York, the New York City Police Department, and the Department's Commissioner (collectively, "Defendants"). See Dkt. 1 (Compl.) Plaintiffs allege that the majority of Defendants' seventy-seven police stations throughout New York City contain significant architectural barriers to people using wheelchairs, walkers, and other mobility devices. See id. ¶¶ 44-146. They claim that these barriers exclude people with mobility disabilities from critical public-safety services, programs, and activities in violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12132 ; the *243Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 ; and the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107(4)(a). See id. ¶¶ 155-86. Now before the Court are (1) Plaintiffs' motion in limine [Dkts. 87-93] to exclude the testimony of Defendants' proposed expert, architect Antonio Pinto, and (2) Defendants' renewed motion in limine [Dkts. 117-19] to exclude the testimony of Plaintiffs' expert, accessibility inspector Kelly Hang, under Fed. R. Evid. 702.1 The parties retained these proposed experts to survey the architectural features of a sample of Defendants' stationhouses and opine whether those features comply with the U.S. Department of Justice's 1991 and 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design-a prerequisite to assessing whether the condition of the stationhouses causes persons with mobility disabilities to "be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity," 42 U.S.C. § 12132 ; see also 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, app. D (1991 Standards for Accessible Design as Originally Published on July 26, 1991); 28 C.F.R. § 35.151 (first portion of 2010 Standards for Accessible Design for State and Local Government Entities); 36 C.F.R. pt. 1191 apps. B, D (remaining portion of 2010 Standards for Accessible Design for State and Local Government Entities). For the following reasons, Plaintiffs' motion is GRANTED, and Defendants' motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART.

DISCUSSION

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. It provides that a person "qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education" may offer opinion testimony so long as:

(a) the expert's scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and
(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts....

While the party offering expert testimony bears the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that the testimony satisfies Rule 702, "the district court is the ultimate gatekeeper." United States v. Williams , 506 F.3d 151, 160 (2d Cir. 2007) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). Rule 702 tasks the trial judge with "ensuring that an expert's testimony both rests on a reliable foundation and is relevant to the task at hand."

*244Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc. , 509 U.S. 579, 597, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). This gatekeeping obligation "applies not only to testimony based on 'scientific' knowledge, but also to testimony based on 'technical' and 'other specialized' knowledge." Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael , 526 U.S. 137, 141, 119 S.Ct. 1167, 143 L.Ed.2d 238 (1999).

The threshold question for the Court is whether the "proffered expert testimony is relevant." Amorgianos v. Nat. R.R. Passenger Corp. , 303 F.3d 256, 265 (2d Cir. 2002). If it is, the Court must then determine "whether the proffered testimony has a sufficiently reliable foundation to permit it to be considered." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has laid down several factors pertinent to this inquiry, including "whether a theory or technique ...

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360 F. Supp. 3d 240, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/disabled-in-action-v-city-of-new-york-ilsd-2019.