28 CFR Part 36, Subpart D - New Construction and Alterations

This final rule amends the Department of Justice (Department) regulation implementing title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities by public accommodations and commercial facilities, including movie theaters. The rule adds specific requirements addressing the obligations of public accommodations that own, lease, or operate movie theaters to provide effective communication to patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing, or blind or have low vision. The rule requires that movie theater auditoriums provide closed movie captioning and audio description when showing a digital movie distributed with such features unless doing so would result in an undue burden or a fundamental alteration. The rule requires movie theaters to have a specified number of captioning devices and audio description devices based on the number of auditoriums in the movie theater that show digital movies. The rule does not impose any specific requirements for movie theater auditoriums that exhibit analog movies exclusively.

The Department of Justice (Department) is issuing this final rule to amend its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations in order to incorporate the statutory changes to the ADA set forth in the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADA Amendments Act or the Act), which took effect on January 1, 2009. In response to earlier Supreme Court decisions that significantly narrowed the application of the definition of “disability” under the ADA, Congress enacted the ADA Amendments Act to restore the understanding that the definition of “disability” shall be broadly construed and applied without extensive analysis. Congress intended that the primary object of attention in cases brought under the ADA should be whether covered entities have complied with their statutory obligations not to discriminate based on disability. In this final rule, the Department is adding new sections to its title II and title III ADA regulations to set forth the proper meaning and interpretation of the definition of “disability” and to make related changes required by the ADA Amendments Act in other sections of the regulations.

In accordance with the provisions of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, the Department of Justice is adjusting for inflation civil monetary penalties assessed or enforced by components of the Department.

On August 1, 2014, the Department of Justice published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in the Federal Register in order to propose amendments to its Americans with Disabilities Act title III regulation to require the provision of closed movie captioning and audio description to give persons with hearing and vision disabilities access to movies. The comment period is scheduled to close on September 30, 2014. The Department of Justice is extending the comment period until December 1, 2014 in order to provide additional time for the public to prepare comments.

The Department of Justice (Department) is issuing this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in order to propose amendments to its regulation for title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which covers public accommodations and commercial facilities, including movie theaters. The Department is proposing to explicitly require movie theaters to exhibit movies with closed captioning and audio description at all times and for all showings whenever movies are produced, distributed, or otherwise made available with captioning and audio description unless to do so would result in an undue burden or fundamental alteration. The Department is also proposing to require movie theaters to have a certain number of individual closed captioning and audio description devices unless to do so would result in an undue burden or fundamental alteration. The Department is proposing a six-month compliance date for movie theaters' digital movie screens and is seeking public comment on whether it should adopt a four-year compliance date for movie theaters' analog movie screens or should defer rulemaking on analog screens until a later date.

In accordance with section 4 of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996, the Department of Justice is adjusting for inflation the civil monetary penalties assessed or enforced by the Civil Rights Division.

The Department of Justice (Department) is issuing this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to amend its Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations in order to incorporate the statutory changes to the ADA set forth in the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (ADA Amendments Act or the Act), which took effect on January 1, 2009. Congress enacted the ADA Amendments Act in order to revise the ADA definition of “disability” and to ensure that the definition is broadly construed and applied without extensive analysis. In this NPRM, the Department is proposing to add new sections to its title II and title III ADA regulations at 28 CFR parts 35 and 36, respectively, to provide detailed definitions of “disability” and to make consistent changes in other sections of the regulations. The ADA Amendments Act authorizes the Attorney General to issue regulations consistent with the Act that implement the definitions of “disability” in sections 3 and 4 of the Act, including the rules of construction set forth in section 3. The Department invites written comments from members of the public on this proposed rule.

This final rule revises the Department of Justice regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act to extend until January 31, 2013, the compliance date for the application of sections 242 and 1009 of the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Standards for Accessible Design for existing pools and spas.