The Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act (PWDCRA); MCL 37.1302(a); Prima facie case; “Undue hardship”; Accommodation of reading plaintiff’s public comments aloud at city council meetings; The Open Meetings Act (OMA); Interaction of the statutes when a person with a recognized disability requests an accommodation to participate in a public meeting; Attorney General (AG) opinion on the interaction of the OMA & the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); OAG, 2022, No. 7,318 p 1 (2/4/22)

The court held that nothing in the OMA undermined the trial court’s reliance on the PWDCRA in issuing a permanent injunction obligating defendant-city to read aloud comments submitted by plaintiff in advance at city council meetings during the public-comment portion. Plaintiff “is confined to a wheelchair due to a spinal-cord injury that rendered him paraplegic, so he cannot readily attend in-person meetings[.]” Relying on the PWDCRA, he contended “defendant had to accommodate his disability by reading his public comments aloud at the city council meetings.” Defendant did so at two meetings before adopting “a policy limiting public comments to in-person remarks.” The court first concluded that plaintiff established a prima facie case under the PWDCRA. “Opportunities to make public comments at a city council meeting are ‘services,’ ‘privileges,’ ‘advantages,’ and ‘accommodations’ provided and regulated by defendant, as contemplated by MCL 37.1302(a).” Further, under the 72-hour written notice provision adopted by defendant, “plaintiff’s comments would not be heard by the public or members of the city council during the meetings.” Thus, it did not provide him “with ‘the full and equal enjoyment’ of the opportunity to provide public comments during” the meetings. And nothing in the record indicated that the accommodation of reading his comments “imposed any ‘undue hardship’ on defendant.” It argued that the OMA mandated a different result. The parties cited an AG opinion “analyzing how the OMA interacts with the” ADA. Defendant characterized the injunction “as requiring ‘fully virtual’ city council meetings” and asserted, “by analogy to the [AG’s] reasoning as to the ADA, that requiring fully virtual city council meetings would be a fundamental alteration of those meetings.” But the court noted that the injunction did “not require a virtual meeting.” The character of the “meetings, i.e., conducted in person and streamed virtually, remains unchanged under the” injunction. Thus, “the trial court’s application of the PWDCRA to provide an accommodation to plaintiff does not run afoul of the language or purpose of the OMA.” The court concluded the “trial court delicately struck an appropriate balance between the standards of the OMA and the requirements of the PWDCRA, thereby harmonizing the statutory dictates prescribed by” the Legislature. Affirmed.