Class Action: Blind People Can’t Use Rite Aid’s POS Devices in Privacy

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

The Rite Aid Corporation was hit with a class action lawsuit in a New York federal court by a New York blind woman over alleged “systemic civil rights violations” against its blind customers in New York and across the United States.

Plaintiff Mary West claims in her class action lawsuit filed April 14 that the point-of-sale devices used at Rite Aid drugstores are not accessible to blind individuals, which is a violation of both federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

“The POS Devices use exclusively visual, touch screen interfaces with features that are not discernible to individuals who are blind or visually impaired,” the Rite Aid class action lawsuit alleges.

West explains that because the POS devices use a touch screen, she and other visually impaired customers “must divulge” their personal identification numbers “to a store’s associate or third party in order to complete a debit transaction.”

She argues that this isn’t necessary because there are POS devices available “with tactilely discernible keypad surfaces which are independently usable by a blind or visually impaired individual, and are in fact already implemented by a substantial percentage of retail merchants.”

However, “Rite Aid has chosen to exclusively install inaccessible, touch screen only POS Devices.”

West claims that Rite Aid’s alleged discrimination practices is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act because it does not provide “full integration, independent living, and equal opportunity” for its blind customers.

She says that she has shopped at Rite Aid pharmacies in New York City over the last year and has had to make all her purchases using either a credit card or cash, in order to keep her banking information private.

New York law also requires business and “places of public accommodation to ensure access to goods, services and facilities by making reasonable accommodation to ensure access to goods, services and facilities by making reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities,” West explains in her Rite Aid class action lawsuit.

West also cites anti-discrimination laws in 30 other states that all make similar requirements.

The blind woman says that she intends to shop at Rite Aid Pharmacies and to make payments with her debit card and wants the court to require Rite Aid to change its point-of-sale devices so that she and other blind customers may shop at the drugstores without having to disclose their PINs.

Specifically she is asking for “a preliminary and permanent injunction requiring [Rite Aid] to take all the steps necessary to bring its POS Devices provided at Rite Aid Pharmacies in Rite Aid states into full compliance with the requirements set forth in the ADA.”

West is seeking to represent a New York class and a nationwide class for “all legally blind individuals in the United States [and New York State] who have attempted, or will attempt, to make a debit purchase with Rite Aid’s POS devices at its drug stores.”

West alleges in her anti-discrimination class action lawsuit that Rite has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law.

West is represented by C.K. Lee and Anne Melissa Seelig of Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

Counsel information for Rite Aid is not yet available.

The Rite Aid ADA Class Action Lawsuit is West v. Rite Aid Corporation, Case No. 1:15-cv-02881, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.