Denver judge OKs final settlement between Hollister, disabled customers over store access
By Mark Harden – News Director, Denver Business Journal
Sep 25, 2015, 8:10am MDT Updated Sep 25, 2015, 7:29am
The Hollister Co. chain of youth-fashion stores has put to rest a long-running legal battle that began in Denver over wheelchair access to its stores.
The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel in Denver signed off Thursday on a settlement between the chain -- a unit of New Albany, Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) -- and disabled customers.
Under the settlement, Hollister will remove steps at the entrances to many of its U.S. stores.
The chain said it designed its entrances to resemble the front porches of beach shacks as part of its casual branding program, but disabled customers complained that the step-up entryways at 231 of Hollister's stores violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because they barred wheelchair access.
Daniel in August 2013 had ordered the step-up Hollister stores-- representing about 40 percent of its U.S. locations -- to reconfigure their wheelchair-unfriendly entrances by the end of 2016.
In September 2014, a three-judge panel of 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges decided 2-1 that the chain did not violate the ADA because alternative side entrances were provided. The appellate panel sent the case back to Wiley for further consideration.
But plaintiffs in the case argued that the side entrances were often difficult to access, blocked or otherwise unsuitable.
The settlement approved Thursday means the case won't go to trial.
Hollister already has begun making its store entrances wheelchair accessible, and may close some locations, the AP reports. The chain said it expects to have 92 of its store entrances converted by late January.
One plaintiff in the class-action case is Denver policy analyst
Julie Farrar, who previously said she
couldn’t access the main entrance of a Denver-area Hollister store in her wheelchair.
The Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition’s legal program and the Denver-based Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center helped to represent plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit.
Hollister has four stores in Colorado, including outlets at the Park Meadows and FlatIron Crossing malls, according to its website.
Abercrombie & Fitch — which started out in 1892 as a New York outdoor gear retailer — operates more than 800 stores in the U.S. across its various brands and about 160 stores outside of the United States.
What is now L Brands Inc. (NYSE: LB, formerly Limited Brands, parent of the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works chains) bought A&F in 1988, then took it public as a separate company in 1996
