Federal Court Issues Injunction Requiring Scribe Services at Alameda County Clerk-Recorder's Office

On January 17, 2025, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order granting in part and denying in part a motion for a permanent injunction against Alameda County. The decision follows a six-day jury trial in early 2024 arising from an in-person visit to the Alameda County Clerk-Recorder's Office (CRO).

Factual and Procedural History

The plaintiff, who is blind and runs a life-coaching business, attempted to complete a fictitious business name statement (FBNS) downloaded as a PDF from the Alameda County website. Due to inaccessible formatting and missing tags within the PDF form, the plaintiff could not complete it independently and obtained sighted assistance at home to fill in and sign the document.

On March 29, 2019, the plaintiff visited the CRO in Oakland, California, to file the form. Clerks identified two errors requiring correction before the filing could be accepted. When the plaintiff requested in-person assistance to correct the form due to blindness, staff refused, citing an office policy prohibiting personnel from filling out or modifying customer forms. Over an hour later, a supervisor reiterated the refusal, characterizing the request as unlawful and refusing to provide a scribe. The plaintiff subsequently hired a private transcriber and filed the statement at the CRO on May 31, 2019.

Following a trial in March and April 2024, a jury determined Alameda County violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on March 29, 2019, acting with deliberate indifference, and awarded the plaintiff $30,500 under the ADA and the California Disabled Persons Act.

The Court's Ruling on Injunctive Relief

Following the verdict, the plaintiff moved for a permanent injunction to require:

• Remediation of online PDF forms and the web-based FBNS wizard for screen readers;
• In-person transcriber or scribe services for blind individuals completing CRO forms;
• Formal staff training on auxiliary aids and effective communication.

The court granted the request for human transcriber services while denying the remaining elements.

Transcriber Services Granted

During proceedings, Alameda County highlighted alternatives it introduced after 2019, including an on-site self-service computer kiosk equipped with JAWS screen-reading software and an online filing wizard. However, expert evaluations demonstrated that the kiosk software and web wizard lacked proper field descriptions and structure, leaving average screen-reader users unable to navigate or complete forms independently. The court also observed that county policy still barred employees from writing on forms.

Finding that monetary damages were insufficient to guarantee future compliance and that transcription imposed negligible administrative or financial burdens, the court ordered the CRO to provide human transcriber services to any blind or visually impaired person requesting assistance with a form. The court established two limits to this requirement:

1. Clerks are not required to alter or correct an already-signed paper form, but must transcribe onto blank or unsigned documents.
2. The requirement applies to all CRO forms unless the county can document that accommodating a specific, lengthy, or complex form would result in an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamental alteration of services under 28 C.F.R. § 35.164.

Should the county implement accessible technology in the future that fully complies with Title II effective communication mandates, it may seek relief from the injunction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b).

Digital Remediation and Training Requests Denied

The court declined to order Alameda County to fix its online PDF forms or web-access systems. Because the plaintiff's complaint and jury trial focused strictly on the discrete denial of in-person services on March 29, 2019, rather than ongoing web accessibility claims, the court held that an injunction addressing digital documents exceeded the violations formally established at trial.

Additionally, the court denied mandatory staff training, concluding that the primary source of the discrimination was the CRO's blanket internal policy prohibiting employees from writing on forms, rather than inadequate training.