D.C. Circuit panel: paper money unfair to blind is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 13 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The piece is puzzling because Maurer is the president of the National Federation of the Blind, which is suing Target for failing to make its website easily accessible to blind people.  Maurer calls the currency case, which is supported by the American Council of the Blind, ‘frivolous litigation’ while characterizing his group’s Target lawsuit as a straightforward application of the nondiscrimination principle.

Eye of the beholder, indeed.

Update: Which is Most Discriminatory Against Blind Consumers? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update: paper money design unfair to blind is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Welcome radio listeners is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

More: Here’s an interesting development: the National Federation of the Blind, the best known organization for blind Americans, has issued a press release sharply critical of the lawsuit and the ruling (“dangerously misguided”) (Yahoo/PRNewswire, Nov. 29). According to Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, “The blind need jobs and real opportunities to earn money, not feel-good gimmicks that misinform the public about our capabilities. Blind people transact business with paper money every day. … [The ruling] argues that the blind cannot handle currency or documents in the workplace and that virtually everything must be modified for the use of the blind. An employer who believes that every piece of printed material in the workplace must be specially designed so that the blind can read it will have a strong incentive not to hire a blind person.” More from the NFB press release:

Blind people traditionally identify paper currency by folding bills of different denominations in different ways. “In reality, blind people do not routinely find that we have been short-changed,” Maurer commented. Machines are readily available to identify paper money for blind people who run businesses or handle large amounts of cash. “Essentially, the United States Treasury has been ordered by the courts to come up with a solution for a nonexistent problem,” Maurer said.

Per the AP, “Government attorneys argued that forcing the Treasury Department to change the size or texture of the bills would make it harder to prevent counterfeiting,” but Judge Robertson was not swayed (“Judge Says Currency Shortchanges the Blind”, AP/Washington Post, Nov. 29). See also Dvorak Uncensored and Orin Kerr.

“Judge rules paper money unfair to blind” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system