Calcano v. Swarovski North America Limited

Issue

On May 13, 2020, the Appellant asked the Second Circuit to reverse the decision put forth by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which holds that the ADA does not require businesses to offer gift cards in Braille.

August 28, 2020

The Restaurant Law Center, Retail Litigation Center, and others file amicus curiae brief, in support of appellees, in the 5 consolidated braille gift card litigation cases pending before the Second Circuit.

June 2, 2022

The unanimous panel ruled in favor of the businesses with one judge writing a separate opinion that concurred in the judgment but not in the reasoning. The decision was based on a lack of standing; the concurrence disagreed on the standing issue but found that the plaintiffs had not adequately stated a claim under the ADA. The opinion expresses a healthy degree of skepticism about the claims – specifically calling out the plaintiffs’ use of “cut-and-paste” complaints and characterizing them as “Mad-Libs-style” while also pointing out that the 81 complaints filed by the 5 plaintiffs in the cases that were appealed even shared the same typos.