Los Angeles Times - 04.03.2020

C2 WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2020 LATIMES.COM/BUSINESS

BUSINESS BEAT

Lawsuits against Walt
Disney Co. are moving
ahead in California and Flor-
ida, challenging how the
company allows disabled
people to access theme park
attractions.
Both lawsuits, filed by
the same lead attorney,
Andy Dogali of Tampa,
accuse the world’s most
popular theme park op-
erator of violating the
Americans With Disabilities
Act by making parkgoers
with autism and other disa-
bilities wait too long to get on
a ride. In court records, Do-
gali says he has nearly 100
plaintiffs wanting to chal-
lenge Disney’s policy.
Asked to comment on the
lawsuits, Disney issued a
one-sentence statement:
“Disney Parks have an un-
wavering commitment to
providing an inclusive and
accessible environment for
all our guests.”
The two lawsuits take
aim at the 2013 decision by
Disney to end a policy that
gave visitors with disabili-
ties and their family mem-
bers a Guest Assistance
Card, allowing them to go di-
rectly onto rides, skipping
long lines.
The lawsuits say that the
current policy is unfair
because it treats all visitors
with disabilities the same
and that children and adults
with autism might not
understand the concept of
waiting and taking turns

and could become extremely

upset if they are forced to

wait for a ride at a noisy

theme park. Disney repre-

sentatives said the old sys-

tem was scrapped because it

was often abused by

parkgoers who hired people

with disabilities to accom-

pany them into the parks to

avoid the queues. Under the

current policy, visitors with

disabilities are given a card

that lets them return to an

attraction at a scheduled

time to avoid the longest

lines, similar to the virtual

queuing system known as

FastPass.

Most of the queues for

Disney rides have been up-

graded to be wheelchair ac-

cessible, leaving the current

policy to primarily affect

visitors with “cognitive im-

pairments,” such as autism,

according to the lawsuits.

The lawsuits ask for legal

costs and “other relief ” that

the court may choose.

“The disabled plaintiff,

like other persons with cog-

nitive impairments, is men-

tally and physically incapa-

ble of traveling across the

park to the site of an attrac-

tion only to be told to come

back later,” according to the

Florida lawsuit.

One of the lawsuits, origi-

nally filed in 2014 in federal

court in Los Angeles on be-

half of 26 plaintiffs, was

transferred to a U.S. District

Court in Florida because

most of the plaintiffs com-

plained about access to

rides at the Walt Disney

World Resort in Florida. A

judge rejected a later re-

quest by Dogali to add 69

new plaintiffs with a total of

more than 200 counts.

A second lawsuit, making

similar allegations, was filed

in 2015 in federal court in Los

Angeles, targeting the ac-

cess policy for customers

with disabilities at the Dis-

neyland Resort in Anaheim.

The lawsuits do not dis-

close the names of the plain-

tiffs to protect their privacy.

Instead, they are repre-

sented in the lawsuits with

initials.

The California lawsuit

described a 13-year-old boy

from Norwalk as T.P., who

loves Disneyland and has

been diagnosed with autism,

severe obsessive compulsive

disorder, attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder and

having anxiety attacks. T.P.

experiences a meltdown if he

can’t go on his favorite rides

in a particular order, accord-

ing to the lawsuit.

Since Disney changed its

disabled access policy, the

lawsuit said, “T.P. has ex-

perienced several melt-

downs at Disneyland. Two of

these meltdowns were so

bad [his mother] had to re-

move T.P. from the park due

to the potential of T.P. hurt-

ing himself, [his mother],

and others.”

A district judge in Florida

threw out the Florida law-

suit in 2016, giving Disney a

victory, but an appeals court

judge sent the case back to

the original district court to

rule on the fairness of Dis-

ney’s policy for each individ-

ual plaintiff, said Eugene

Feldman, one of the attor-

neys for the California plain-

tiffs.

A bench trial for the first

plaintiff in Florida began

last month, Feldman said. A

verdict isn’t expected until

late March at the earliest.

The lawsuit filed in Cali-

fornia has dragged on for

years in federal court in Los

Angeles, even outlasting the

original judge hearing the

case, who died last year. The

case has been reassigned to

a new judge.

A mediation session that

was ordered by the latest

district judge in hopes of re-

solving the case without a

trial failed, according to

court records filed Feb. 6. No

date has been set for a trial.

Even if Disney loses the

lawsuits, Feldman said, Dis-

ney may be able to keep its

current accessibility policy

but would have to offer spe-

cific exceptions for the plain-

tiffs in the lawsuit.

Disney is sued over disability policy

People with cognitive

problems face long

waits for rides at

theme parks, suits say.

By Hugo Martín

THE CURRENTdisability policy primarily affects visitors with cognitive impairments such as autism, ac-

cording to the lawsuits. Above, park visitors wait to get into the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland in 2017.

Gary CoronadoLos Angeles Times

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is
asking thousands of U.S.
employees to work from
home as it tests a contin-
gency plan for closing do-
mestic offices should the co-
ronavirus spread, according
to people with knowledge of
the matter.
Managers requested that
about 10% of staff across its
consumer bank work re-
motely as part of the plan’s
resiliency testing, which has
been code-named “Project
Kennedy,” said the people,
who asked not to be identi-
fied discussing internal mat-
ters. JPMorgan’s consumer
bank, which primarily op-
erates in the U.S., has 127,137
employees, the most of any
of the company’s divisions.
Banks around the globe
have been working to ensure
they can keep their busi-
nesses running as the co-
ronavirus spreads, restric-
ting travel, splitting up
teams and traders amid lo-
cations, and quarantining
staff. They’re also dusting
off regulatory plans for
keeping “critical opera-
tions” open through a po-
tential pandemic, some of
which describe things such
as how far apart traders
should sit from one another,
or how many can work re-
motely. JPMorgan’s leaders
have been double-checking
contingency plans to be sure
the company can continue
to serve customers in the
event of widespread disrup-
tions. For the consumer
bank, testing the tele-
commuting policy on a sam-
pling of employees across
businesses can ensure kinks
are worked out before the
plan needs to be rolled out
more broadly in the event of
a pandemic, one of the peo-
ple said.
The moves are part of
broader resiliency planning
at the bank. The company
last week restricted nones-
sential international travel
for all employees and has
been urging workers to test
their remote-access capa-
bilities. JPMorgan has also

been testing out systems at

backup trading sites over

the last few days in case

workers need to be moved

off the main trading floors in

New York and London, one

of the people said.

A JPMorgan spokesman

declined to comment.

Although technology has

made it possible for a grow-

ing number of professionals

to do their jobs remotely,

working from home gener-

ally isn’t an option for

branch workers such as tell-

ers and bankers who deal di-

rectly with customers. JP-

Morgan had 4,976 branches

around the country as of the

end of December that are

filled with thousands of em-

ployees who have to show up

to work for business to run.

The bank is providing ex-

tra hand sanitizer to cus-

tomer-facing branch work-

ers and taking extra steps to

sanitize offices, branches

and equipment, including

elevator call buttons and

door handles, according to a

memo from Co-President

Gordon Smith to consumer

bank staff Friday. JPMorgan

also is encouraging consum-

ers to access bank services

and products through dig-

ital channels instead of

walking into branches when

they can.

“This can make their life

easier all the time,” Smith

wrote.

JPMorgan tests

a virus plan —

telecommuting

By Michelle F. Davis

One investor decided he

might fly to Idaho, with or

without family. Other

wealthy folks, wanting a

cure, were being soothed by

a doctor in a Colorado ski

town. And one New Yorker

called up the hospital with

his name on it.

Like everyone across the

U.S., the wealthy are bracing

for a deadly coronavirus

outbreak.

Ken Langone, co-founder

of Home Depot Inc.,

watched President Trump’s

news conference and won-

dered if the media was over-

playing the risk — but he

also made two well-placed

phone calls from his winter

outpost in North Palm

Beach, Fla. One was to a top

executive of NYU Langone

Health, and the other was to

a top scientist there. Both

were reassuring.

“What I’ve been told by

people who are smarter than

me in disease is, as of right

now it’s a bad flu,” said Lan-

gone, an 84-year-old who

loves capitalism so much

that he wrote a book called “I

Love Capitalism!”

He plans to come back to

New York this month for an

appointment. If he happens

to feel sick, he will go to NYU

Langone; he said he’d expect

no special treatment. Some

billionaires, bankers and

other members of the U.S.

elite are calm, others are get-

ting anxious, and everyone

is washing their hands. But

the rich can afford to pre-

pare for a pandemic with

perquisites, such as private

plane rides out of town, calls

to world-leading experts

and access to luxurious

medical care.

Tim Kruse, a doctor who

makes house calls in Aspen,

Colo., said, “The wealthy ar-

en’t going to necessarily

have access to things that

the common person is not

going to have access to.” But

that hasn’t stopped them

from asking if they can get

their hands on a coronavirus

vaccine. “The answer is no.

They just want to know.”

Confirmed coronavirus

cases worldwide are nearing

93,000, and more than 3,100

people have died.

The World Health Or-

ganization raised its global

risk assessment for the ill-

ness to “very high.” Fear over

the economic fallout has up-

ended global markets,

plunging Treasury yields to

all-time lows and giving the

Standard & Poor’s 500 index

its worst week since the 2008

financial crisis.

One co-founder of a ma-

jor hedge fund, who asked

not to be named discussing

his plans, said he’d run in the

other direction if his peers

started fleeing into dooms-

day bunkers. He might fly to

a house he has in Italy, a

country that the Centers for

Disease Control and Preven-

tion advises Americans to

avoid. Widespread panic, he

added, would only make

plane tickets cheaper.

Charles Stevenson, an in-

vestor who was the longtime

board president at a Park

Avenue co-op that’s home to

several billionaires, has been

staying in Southampton,

N.Y.

“I don’t feel concerned at

the moment — it’s not near

me right now,” Stevenson

said. “If people in the village

have coronavirus, I’d get out

of here.” He’d fly to Idaho

and close himself off in a cab-

in, he said, and his family

could join him if they

wanted. “That becomes a

personal choice of theirs.”

Wealthy couples who ar-

en’t used to actually spend-

ing time together are in for

trouble, said Mitchell Moss,

who studies urban policy

and planning at New York

University.

“This is going to destroy

the marriages of the rich,”

Moss said. “All these hus-

bands and wives who travel

will now have to spend time

with the person they’re mar-

ried to.”

Trump has predicted the

virus will disappear “like a

miracle,” while Democrats

outlined demands for fund-

ing that included a guaran-

tee of an affordable vaccine.

Face masks don’t effectively

prevent members of the gen-

eral public from catching co-

ronavirus, U.S. Surgeon

General Jerome Adams

said, but healthcare pro-

viders could be at risk if they

can’t get them. “Seriously

people,” Adams wrote on

Twitter, “Stop buying

masks!”

Jewel Mullen, associate

dean for health equity at the

Dell Medical School at the

University of Texas in

Austin, said millions of

Americans couldn’t afford to

stock up on supplies, miss

work or have a steady doctor

to call for advice.

“Resources such as mon-

ey, transportation and infor-

mation give people head

starts on protective and pre-

ventive measures, and can

help create more comfort-

able scenarios for people to

cope with disasters,” said

Mullen, an internist and epi-

demiologist who was com-

missioner of Connecticut’s

Department of Public

Health.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.,

the biggest U.S. bank,

stopped employees from go-

ing on any nonessential

business trips. It joined

other corporate giants in re-

stricting travel, splitting up

teams and traders to differ-

ent locations, or quarantin-

ing staff. Jamie Dimon, the

bank’s chief executive, said

not long before the an-

nouncement that he had

dreamed he and other bil-

lionaires contracted the

virus during January’s

World Economic Forum in

Switzerland.

“I had this nightmare

that somehow, in Davos, all

of us who went there got it,

and then we all left and

spread it,” Dimon said at the

bank’s annual investor day.

“The only good news from

that is that it might have just

killed the elite.”

His audience chuckled.

Abelson writes for

Bloomberg.

How the rich brace for virus

Private plane rides out

of town and having

doctors on call for

advice are among the

perks they can afford.

By Max Abelson

When Facebook unveiled

Libra, it said it intended to

create a single global digital

currency.

Anyone, especially the 1.7

billion people who have no

bank account, could send

money anywhere in the

world at little cost, as easily

as sending a text.

Eight months later, after

the idea ran into a wall of op-

position, Facebook and the

Libra Assn., the consortium

behind the digital currency,

Facebook Inc. and its

partners are considering re-

designing the Libra cryp-

tocurrency project so that

the network accepts multi-

ple coins, including those is-

sued by central banks, in an

effort to woo reluctant glob-

al regulators and rebuild

momentum for the plan.

are looking at a revamp, said

three people familiar with

the matter. They are weigh-

ing a recast of Libra as

mostly a payment network

that could operate with mul-

tiple coins, two of the people

said.

The coins could include

those issued by central

banks and backed by the

U.S. dollar, the euro or other

currencies, the people said.

The association will reintro-

duce Libra soon, said the

people, who asked not to be

named because the redesign

remains in flux and the plan

could change.

The dream of a single

global coin isn’t dead, said

one of the people familiar

with the overhaul.

The new plan could ex-

pand, not pull back from, the

original vision, that person

said.

But if the revamped Li-

bra becomes more of a pay-

ment network than a single,

global cryptocurrency, the

average U.S. consumer

might not see much differ-

ence between Libra and ex-

isting payments systems

run by PayPal Holdings Inc.

or numerous fintech start-

ups that aim to seamlessly

move funds around the

globe.

Facebook and the Libra

Assn. declined to comment.

Light, Bain and Kharif write

for Bloomberg.

Facebook may revamp Libra digital currency

By Joe Light,

Ben Bain

and Olga Kharif