Stulberg & Walsh, LLP (formerly Broach & Stulberg, LLP) provides the following services to disabled individuals, classes of disabled individuals, and organizations representing disabled individuals: counseling and representation in disputes over workplace discrimination, retaliation and reasonable accommodation [see Employment Law Practice]; representation in administrative and judicial proceedings brought to make public facilities and public accommodations fully accessible to disabled people; counseling and representation in disputes with insurance companies over individual and group disability income policies.
Among the actions that the firm has undertaken on behalf of disabled individuals and disabled rights organizations are:
- We have served for 25 years as Plaintiff Class Counsel in a landmark federal court lawsuit, which led the City of New York to appropriate, in 2002, more than $217 million to install pedestrian curb ramps for motor-impaired and vision-impaired individuals on the City’s 162,000 street corners, and to enter into a comprehensive settlement agreement, in 2019, to complete those installations and survey, upgrade and maintain every one of those ramps, at an estimated cost of $1.55 billion;
- We have represented a class of deaf and hearing impaired individuals in another landmark federal court lawsuit, which led to a permanent injunction permanently barring the removal of New York City’s five-borough, on-street emergency call box system;
- We have represented two disability rights organizations in a federal court action, which led to a settlement requiring the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to build a new, fully accessible entrance to its Jersey City, New Jersey commuter rail station, which had been built without elevators or lifts for motor disabled people;
- We have represented two disability rights organizations in a federal court action, which led to a settlement requiring New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission to withdraw its licenses to “group-ride” van services, which were entirely inaccessible to motor-disabled people who used wheelchairs or other assistive devices to get around;
- We have represented employees in successful administrative and judicial challenges to employers who have discriminated on the basis of disability and perceived disability, retaliated for complaints about such discrimination, and failed to negotiate and provide reasonable accommodations; and
- We have assisted disabled employees in obtaining coverage under individual and group disability income policies, and have successfully challenged insurance carriers who have denied employees benefits under such policies.