Posted: Wednesday, March 8, 2006 12:00 am
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Wheelchair users took their fight with Salt Lake City taxi companies to a federal appeals court Wednesday, arguing the companies' alternative for offering them rides violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
A city ordinance allows taxi companies to refer wheelchair users to a private ambulance company with wheelchair-accessible vans. The rides are provided for regular cab fare.
Advocates for the disabled contend that violates the ADA. They want to force taxi companies to outfit vans that usually are part of their fleets with lifts or ramps and provide their own service.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case during a four-day visit to Utah. The decision, which isn't expected for at least a month, rests on how the court defines the word "new."
Both sides say the test of the Americans with Disabilities Act could set a national precedent.
The taxi companies argued that the ADA requires that only new vans be made wheelchair-accessible - meaning brand-new vans. Salt Lake City's three taxi companies buy used vans for their fleets, and they contend making those vehicles wheelchair-accessible would be too costly.
Disabled advocates argued Wednesday that new means any van the taxi companies purchase that was manufactured after the 1990 enactment of the ADA.
"One definition gives access, the other definition does not," said Richard Armknecht, an attorney representing Utah disability activist Barbara Toomer. If used vans do not have to made accessible, he said the taxi companies could get around the ADA by buying practically brand-new vehicles that have been owned by someone else for only a few days.
Since the filing of the taxi case, Salt Lake City enacted an ordinance requiring taxis to accommodate people in wheelchairs. That's when the three licensed cab companies arranged for the service to be provided by Gold Cross Services Inc., which takes calls for three specially equipped vans.
Armknecht told the three-judge panel that when language in the ADA is ambiguous, courts have sided with the intent of the act - which is to supply equal access to public accommodations.
But attorneys for the cab companies said the city's ordinance already provides adequate access to taxi services for the disabled and at reasonable cost. They contend most of the city's taxi-vans cannot be retrofitted to accommodate wheelchairs, and buying used or new wheelchair accessible vans would cost between $15,000 to $35,000 per vehicle.
"The act is abundantly clear, and so are the regulations," said Donald J. Winder, an attorney for the taxi companies.
U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball in Salt Lake City ruled in favor of City Cab Co. in January 2005.