Military Families Win Justice in Washington State

Parents Against Disability Discrimination Hope Their Lawsuit Will Serve As National Model

"This will make a difference in a soldier's life if he comes back injured. I think it's great for the Army as a whole. I hope other posts will look at it and adopt it." — Desiree Snowden

This September, a landmark settlement was reached in Parents Against Disability Discrimination (P.A.D.D.) v. Equity Residential, the first lawsuit in the nation to allege systematic disability discrimination since the military began privatizing its on-base housing in 1998.

Thanks to the lawsuit, brought by veteran Tammarra Johnson (pictured) and 6 other families at Fort Lewis, Equity will now make 10% of existing homes at Fort Lewis accessible and make future buildings ADA-compliant. The residents also won truly accessible sidewalks, parks, playgrounds, and other community facilities, and established a process for the 3,000 families stationed at Fort Lewis to request accessibility accommodations.

Before the lawsuit, soldiers say there was widespread discrimination and retaliation against them simply because they have a disabled family member. Trial Lawyers for Public Justice and Disability Rights Advocates were lead counsel in the suit.

Background

Equity, a private development company was employed by the Department of Defense under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative in 2000 to develop a Community Development Management Plan (CDMP) for Fort Lewis.

Since taking over, Equity’s pattern of discrimination violated numerous federal and state laws, including the federal Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and Washington State law, say residents.

The Case

Filed in the Federal District for the Western District of Washington, the case was a class action filed on behalf of all military families with at least one immediate family member who is disabled and alleged that Equity/Fort Lewis Communities LLC (“Equity”) had discriminated against these families in regard to the provision of military family housing.

While the case was filed by seven families stationed at Fort Lewis, the organizational plaintiff was Parents Against Disability Discrimination, an organization comprised of military families who are stationed at Fort Lewis and who have family members with disabilities. Almost all of these families have personally experienced disability discrimination in on-post housing since Equity began managing the housing at Fort Lewis.

Individual plaintiffs included Charo “Tina” Agee, a military spouse with fibromyalgia who uses a motorized scooter part of the time for mobility. Yet, Equity refused to make needed physical modifications to her housing due to narrow hallways that were difficult to pass through.

Also included was Connie Whalen is a spouse who requested that Equity install door alarms because her son has autism and kept leaving the home at night. When Equity refused to install the alarms and refused to allow Mrs. Whalen to install the alarms herself, she did so anyway to protect her family. Equity has never reimbursed her for the expense.

The Settlement

Thanks to the lawsuit, Equity has agreed to make 10% of all housing units at Fort Lewis accessible to residents with disabilities and to make newly constructed housing and existing and newly constructed sidewalks, parks, and playgrounds at Fort Lewis accessible to people with disabilities.

In addition, Equity agreed to modify its practices and policies by implementing a new, negotiated, streamlined procedure regarding requests by residents with disabilities for reasonable housing accommodations.

The Larger Impact

Fort Lewis has an advanced medical facility on post called the Madigan Army Medical Center. As part of its Exceptional Family Member Program, the Army attempts to station military families with disabled members at bases that have the medical and social capacity to accommodate their needs. Because the nearby medical facility has substantial capacity in this regard, Fort Lewis has a high population of reported military families who have at least one family member with a disability.

Soldiers and their families at Fort Lewis hope that their landmark settlement will reverberate at similar bases across the country, and that other contractors will establish similar guidelines for disability-friendly housing. Summer Krook, one of the plaintiffs and a founder of Parents Against Disability Discrimination, said: "This settlement will improve the day-to-day lives of the many soldiers and family members with disabilities at Fort Lewis. We hope that [this case] will serve as a model for improving accessibility for people with disabilities at military bases around the country and abroad."

Echoing her sentiments, another plaintiff stationed at Fort Lewis and the wife of an Army sergeant deployed in Afghanistan told the Seattle Times: "This [settlement] will make a difference in a soldier's life if he comes back injured. I think it's great for the Army as a whole. I hope other posts will look at it and adopt it."

November 2005