Legal Firms sued for Alleged ADA Violations, Charging Deaf Clients Extra for Deposition Transcripts

Morgan & Morgan Sues Legal Services Firms for Alleged ADA Violations, Charging Deaf Clients Extra for Deposition Transcripts ----- Transcript: The Morgan & Morgan law firm said in a statement that they are representing two Deaf clients in bringing two lawsuits against their former legal services companies because they allegedly violated the ADA when they charged additional fees for transcribing depositions when there were ASL interpreters present during the depositions. Morgan & Morgan explained that their Deaf clients, in 2023 and 2024, filed employment discrimination lawsuits. They retained legal services companies “US Legal Support” and “Magna Legal Services” for their court reporter services for transcriptions of depositions. Depositions are oral testimony done out of the court and an important part of the litigation process. The legal services companies allegedly charged their Deaf clients “Interpreter Pages” fees that ranged from $0.40 cents to $1.00 per page of the transcripts, which amounted to hundreds of dollars in additional legal costs. Morgan & Morgan said the legal services companies didn’t shoulder any of the costs of hiring the interpreters but imposed additional fees. According to one of the lawsuits, one of the Deaf clients, who is a resident in Florida, filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against her employer in 2022. During that process, several Deaf and hard of hearing witnesses were deposed with interpreters present. The Deaf client retained the interpreters at her expense. There was a court reporter to transcribe these depositions, which is the norm, and the Deaf client expected to pay for this service as a part of her legal fees in the lawsuit. When she received her bill, she found that she was charged a surcharge of $0.60 cents per transcribed page if there was an interpreter present. In other times when an interpreter was not present (meaning only hearing people were involved), there was no surcharge for the transcripts. The Deaf client ended up paying the surcharges and is now alleging she was discriminated against based on her disability, that the surcharges are illegal. This is my observation — it seems like these legal services companies considered the presence of ASL interpreters as some kind of additional burden or labor for the court reporters, but it doesn’t make sense to me because the ASL interpreters were simply there to voice or sign for the Deaf clients. These ASL interpreters should, in theory, be considered invisible in the deposition process. Maybe the deposition documents can say that the Deaf clients had ASL interpreters present, but there shouldn’t be any kind of additional charges simply because interpreters are there, because they’re simply voicing for the Deaf clients. What makes this scenario even worse is that the Deaf clients already had to pay for the interpreters, and this interpreter fees for the depositions is yet another financial burden for them. Morgan & Morgan said they want to represent classes of all those affected by the alleged surcharges, alleging that legal services companies are breaking laws on “unjust enrichment,” the “…Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act,” and as mentioned earlier, the ADA. Morgan & Morgan’s founder and attorneys John Yanchunis and Sharon Caserta said these legal services companies violated Deaf people’s rights by charging them more for the same services they provide to hearing clients. Morgan & Morgan provided an ASL summary of this case in a video on their website and the link is below. If I have updates on this story, I will share. https://www.forthepeople.com/video/le... ____ ***We posted this story on the Daily Moth app last week. To get the latest "Deaf News" stories, subscribe to our app. Subscribe through our website - https://members.dailymoth.com Download on Apple Store - https://tinyurl.com/yffh5h6k Download on Google Play - https://tinyurl.com/yc5d4pf2 $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year