Florida gets hit with lawsuit for allowing pregnant women to park in handicap spaces

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A lawsuit has been filed in opposition to Florida difficult a state regulation permitting pregnant girls to make use of handicap parking areas.

This summer season, Sunshine State lawmakers handed laws authorizing expectant moms to acquire permits for disabled parking signage.

The permits, which require a physician’s be aware, value $15 and are legitimate for one yr, in keeping with WFSU.

In response, a lawsuit filed in federal court docket final week accused the brand new allowing means of violating the People with Disabilities Act, which mandates sure lodging be afforded to disabled folks.

“These lodging don’t exist simply to make our lives simpler,” plaintiff Olivia Keller, who was born with out arms and makes use of a wheelchair, instructed CBS12. “They exist to make our lives potential.”

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The brand new invoice, signed into regulation by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in June, was designed to supply pregnant girls aid from Florida’s sweltering summer season warmth.

State Rep. Fiona McFarland, who sponsored the invoice, stated she desires expectant moms to have the ability to park near storefronts. Throughout a committee listening to final spring, she stated that, when she was 9 months pregnant, she would stroll previous unused handicapped parking areas.

“Being pregnant will not be a incapacity,” the GOP lawmaker stated within the listening to. “I simply need to have the ability to park up entrance.”

However Keller — represented by Nova Southeastern College’s Incapacity Inclusion and Advocacy Legislation Clinic and lawyer Matthew Dietz — has argued that the invoice clearly flies within the face of the ADA.

The ADA, signed into regulation in 1990, mandates varied guidelines about lodging together with that governments, companies and non-profits should present accessible parking areas for people with disabilities.

“What the state can not do is enact a regulation that lessens the protections for folks with disabilities offered by federal regulation,” Dietz stated, in keeping with CBS12. “And that’s precisely what the state did.”

The lawsuit, filed in late October in opposition to the Florida Division of Freeway Security and Motor Automobiles, requests that the state be stopped from issuing expectant mom placards. It additionally asks to revoke placards which have already been issued.

Keller stated she will sympathize with Florida officers desirous to make the lives of pregnant girls extra snug. However, she instructed CBS12 that folks with disabilities ought to nonetheless be prioritized.

“If I don’t park there, I actually can’t get out of my automotive,” she stated. “Which means I can’t get to work, I can’t go to the physician, I can’t dwell my life.”