When blind Union City resident Lisamaria Martinez sought help from the Clerk-Recorder’s office staff to file paperwork for her new business in 2019, she was repeatedly denied assistance — violating the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), a federal jury ruled.
CRO staff members refused to assist Martinez with signing a fictitious business name form in 2019, stating that only the business owner could complete the legal paperwork, according to court documents. Though Martinez explained that she was unable to fill out the paper form on her own, court documents say CRO staff and managers refused to help Martinez until she left more than 90 minutes later.
Martinez sued, and the legal dispute did not conclude until last week, when the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved a $1.2 million settlement payment to her.
While pleased with the victory, Martinez’s lawyer Tim Elder expressed disbelief that the county let the case drag on for so long.
“Lisamaria Martinez was willing to resolve this case five years ago for no damages, minimal legal fees and the County of Alameda agreeing to change its policy,” Elder told Bay Area News Group. “Instead of following express federal guidance, the county dug its heels in on a nonsensical interpretation of the law and fought this case for five years.”
Under federal law, public and private entities must provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities to ensure they have equal opportunity to work and participate in public life, according to the ADA. For blind people such as Martinez, this may include having a staff member read or write on official forms under their direction.
“Her experience was time-wasting, frustrating, dehumanizing, and unnecessary. She would not have suffered it, had the ACC provided her with auxiliary aids and services as legally required,” Elder wrote to Alameda County Counsel Donna Ziegler and Clerk-Recorder Melissa Wilk in Nov. 2019.
Martinez had previously sued Alameda County in a class action lawsuit in 2013 for failing to offer an accessible voting machine that provides audio assistance for sight-impaired people. A federal court ruled in October 2013 that Alameda County must ensure blind and visually impaired voters must be able to vote privately and independently during elections.
In the 2019 lawsuit, Martinez sued Alameda County for discrimination. Elder said that his client did not seek damages for her lawsuit, only a policy change that would accommodate sight-impaired people like her. County Counsel Donna Ziegler’s office fought the lawsuit instead, claiming that Martinez had asked for legal advice with her paperwork that would require a notary, which could not be legally fulfilled by a staff member.
County officials did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
The lawsuit was litigated until 2024, when a federal jury in San Francisco ruled in favor of Martinez and awarded her $30,500 in damages. The $1.2 million settlement approved by the Board of Supervisors represented legal fees incurred over the trial, according to Elder.
“I was faced with a choice: remain silent or fight against a clear injustice,” Martinez said in a statement with the National Federation of the Blind in 2024 following the verdict. “In choosing to fight, I risked being told my rights were different because I am blind—a risk worth taking to ensure no other blind person faces this kind of discrimination.”
Elder said the county’s handling of the case was unacceptable.
“(Alameda County) lost this case on every issue, required a federal injunction to issue, and subjected taxpayers to over $1.2 million in avoidable legal expense, not including the money spent on the County’s private losing defense firm,” Elder said. “The Board of Supervisors and citizens should be outraged at this overly litigious mishandling of a meritorious civil rights issue.”