Rumbin v. Association of American Medical Colleges

803 F. Supp. 2d 83, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28580, 2011 WL 1085618
CourtDistrict Court, D. Connecticut
DecidedMarch 21, 2011
DocketCivil No. 3:08cv983 (JBA)
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 803 F. Supp. 2d 83 (Rumbin v. Association of American Medical Colleges) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rumbin v. Association of American Medical Colleges, 803 F. Supp. 2d 83, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28580, 2011 WL 1085618 (D. Conn. 2011).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

JANET BOND ARTERTON, District Judge.

Plaintiff Peter Charles Rumbin filed suit pro se against Defendant Association of American Medical Colleges (“AAMC”) under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C. § 12181. He claims that he reported to Defendant that he was severely limited in the major life activities of seeing and reading, but his requests for accommodations in taking the Medical College Admission Test (“MCAT”), administered by Defendant, [85]*85were unlawfully denied. A bench trial was held on Plaintiffs claims in June 2010.

I. Procedural Background

After the AAMC denied Mr. Rumbin’s accommodation request for the MCAT, he filed suit in small claims court, which was dismissed. On February 11, 2008, he filed a disability discrimination complaint with the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (“CHRO”), asserting that AAMC denied him “reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability on or about August 2007,” in violation of Conn. Gen.Stat. §§ 46a-58(a) and 46a-64(a) and the ADA. He identified his disability as “glaucoma, ocular misalignment.”

On June 26, 2008, Mr. Rumbin filed suit in Connecticut Superior Court, and on June 30, 2008, he initiated this action, receiving a release of CHRO jurisdiction on September 15, 2008. He asserts that he applied for but was denied MCAT testing accommodations in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. In addition to AAMC, he initially sued testing companies Prometric, Inc. (“Prometric”) and Sylvan Learning, Inc. (“Sylvan”). The accommodation action requested the following relief: three days to take the MCAT, submission by the AAMC submit his MCAT practice test results to medical schools, and $14-15 million and damages for years of lost earnings and future lost earnings. On March 9, 2009, the Court dismissed Prometric and Sylvan as defendants and granted AAMC’s Motion to Dismiss Mr. Rumbin’s damages claim under Title III of the ADA, under which damages cannot be awarded, and his request for an injunction requiring AAMC to accept and certify as official his practice MCAT results. The claim that remained for trial was Mr. Rumbin’s ADA claim against AAMC, seeking injunctive relief.1

II. Findings of Fact

A. AAMC Accommodation Requests Procedures

The AAMC is a non-profit membership organization that represents medical schools and teaching hospitals. It provides a centralized application service for medical schools in the United States and Canada. (See June 30, 2010 Trial Tr.) Its testing personnel develop and administer the MCAT, scores for which are considered by medical schools in evaluating applications. Nearly 63,000 people took the MCAT in 2009. The exam is designed to predict success in the first few years of [86]*86medical school, and it correlates with performance on the United States Medical Licensing Examination (“USMLE”) Step 1. As of 2009, the test has four hours and twenty minutes worth of content, and test-takers sit for five hours and twenty minutes total, including breaks between sections. Approximately twenty percent of test takers fail to complete the test. Prior to 2006, the test was administered with paper and pencil, since 2007, it is only offered on computers with nineteen-inch monitors.

The AAMC has established procedures that disabled test takers may use to request accommodations and has published those procedures in a document titled “Documenting Physical Disabilities” available on the AAMC website. (See Ex. TT.2) According to the testimony of Michelle Sparacino, the AAMC Director of Test Administration and Operations, the accommodations-request procedures were designed to ensure that the AAMC gives accommodations only when necessary and only to the extent required, to avoid giving any test-takers unfair advantages.

The AAMC provides a number of accommodations for test-takers, several of which are adjustments to the testing computers for people with visual disabilities. For example, the AAMC can provide “zoom text,” which increases font sizes up to 36 times, gives test-takers screen overlays to reduce glare, and can adjust contrast on monitors. The AAMC can also give extra breaks in between examination sections, so disabled test takers may rest their eyes. Although the AAMC can give extra time, it is reluctant to do so, because according to Sparacino, unlike other accommodations, studies show that scores on tests taken with extra time are not equivalent to scores on tests taken with standardized timing. According to Sparacino, in 2008, the AAMC received 700 to 800 requests for accommodations, more than 50 percent of which were granted, and 10 to 20 percent of which were incomplete.

B. Convergence Insufficiency

Although his initial requests for accommodation on the MCAT cited glaucoma as the basis for his disability, Mr. Rumbin and his treating opthalmologist David McCullough clarified during trial that it is his “convergence insufficiency” that causes his difficulty seeing and reading and that necessitates accommodation. Plaintiff no longer claims that his glaucoma requires accommodation.

Convergence insufficiency occurs when an individual tries to turn his eyes inwards, towards each other, resulting in difficulty in visually focusing on close-in objects. It can cause headaches, fatigue, eye strain, and double vision. According to Jack Terry, Executive Director of the National Board of Examiners in Optometry, who reviewed Mr. Rumbin’s accommodations requests for the AAMC, convergence insufficiency is diagnosed based on objective factors, including “near-point of convergence,” (“NPC”), i.e., the number of centimeters from one’s nose at which he or she sees double or one eye deviates out, and subjective factors, including whether the patient suffers from headaches after prolonged reading or visual difficulty while reading. Both Mr. Terry and Dr. McCullough agree that an NPC of ten centimeters is on cusp of the “normal range” and does not, in and of itself, demonstrate convergence insufficiency.

[87]*87C. Mr. Rumbin’s Visual Difficulties

Mr. Rumbin testified that he struggles •with tiny, dense text. He has difficulty reading books with shiny pages, such as textbooks. Nonetheless, Mr. Rumbin graduated with a B.S. in physics from Southern Connecticut State University, having begun his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago and studied at Harvard University. Although he was not given formal accommodations for vision problems while in college, Mr. Rumbin succeeded by using reading strategies such as “mapping passages,” whereby he would use a pencil to read lines, circle key words, and outline passages; while at Harvard, he received “informal accommodations” such as separate proctoring for examinations. Mr. Rumbin pursued graduate degrees in mathematics at Wesleyan College and Columbia University, and although he completed his doctoral qualifying examination and wrote a masters essay, for financial reasons, he never completed these degrees. Mr. Rumbin has taken the Law School Admissions Test without accommodations and said that as a result, he had “very low scores.”

Mr.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In the Matter of Antavis Chavis
Court of Appeals of Maryland, 2023
Kennedy v. District of Columbia
145 F. Supp. 3d 46 (District of Columbia, 2015)
Floyd v. Lee
85 F. Supp. 3d 482 (District of Columbia, 2015)
Girard v. Lincoln College
27 F. Supp. 3d 289 (D. Connecticut, 2014)
Rawdin v. American Board of Pediatrics
985 F. Supp. 2d 636 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 2013)
Martinez v. CONNECTICUT, STATE LIBRARY
817 F. Supp. 2d 28 (D. Connecticut, 2011)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
803 F. Supp. 2d 83, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28580, 2011 WL 1085618, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rumbin-v-association-of-american-medical-colleges-ctd-2011.