Theaters Must Add Closed-Captioning

From: Washington Post, DC - May 4, 2004

Twelve Washington area movie theaters will be required in the next year to add closed-captioning equipment to make their films more accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons, under a settlement approved late Friday by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler concluded that the class-action settlement, which stemmed from a lawsuit filed against the AMC and Loews theater chains by deaf advocacy groups, was fair, reasonable and a better result for the region's hearing-impaired people than they would have received in a trial.

Both sides said the settlement means that the Washington area will have more deaf-accessible movie theaters than any other metropolitan region in the United States or Canada.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company