Passing the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 was only a first step in assuring legal equality for people with disabilities. Across the country, people with neuromuscular diseases are discovering that, to put the law into motion against accessibility and discrimination problems, they have to bring their own legal actions.

Here are a few pending ADA and personal complaints that have been filed by people with neuromuscular disorders.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Cushiony reclining seats with headrests, banked rows of seats providing excellent lines of sight, cupholders, ample legroom and love seats for couples: The new stadium-style theaters offer the most comfortable movie-going experience available outside your family room. Unless you use a wheelchair.

In cities across America, theater chains are rapidly building multiscreen complexes with stadium-style seats. Just as rapidly, groups of people with disabilities are protesting that their needs have been ignored.

In most of these theaters, the tiered seating is accessible only by climbing steps. Patrons enter just in front of the screen and climb to the seats of their choice, leaving wheelchair users sitting in the front. Just a few feet from the screen, viewers in wheelchairs must tilt their heads back at an uncomfortable angle, hardly a comfy experience for anyone and impossible for many people with neuromuscular diseases.

Chad McCruden describes his first visit to a stadium-style theater in Baltimore: "I saw 'The Postman,' and it's a three-hour movie and I was sitting there about five feet away from the screen with my head straight up. I have a lot of friends with Duchenne (muscular dystrophy) who can't move their necks up or down. It upset me because if my friends came here they couldn't watch the movie."

McCruden and others complained to the Maryland Disability Law Center. On behalf of four plaintiffs (not including McCruden), a private attorney is suing three theaters in Maryland owned by the Hoyt's Cinema chain.

This is one of dozens of actions across the country on behalf of moviegoers with disabilities claiming ADA violations by the new theaters.

Progress has been satisfying but slow. In August 1998, the U.S. District Court of Western Texas ruled that the stadium-style Tinseltown theaters built in El Paso by Cinemark USA violated the ADA.

In his ruling, the judge agreed with the plaintiffs' assertion that "wheelchair-bound patrons should and must be afforded seating providing lines of sight at least similar to those afforded to the average patron of the theater rather than being relegated to the worst seats in the house." He awarded a summary judgment and ordered Cinemark to negotiate a remedy with the plaintiffs. No action has been taken to redesign the theaters, and Cinemark has appealed the ruling.

Tisha Dominguez of Advocacy Inc., one of the attorneys in the El Paso case, says the Justice Department has filed cases in both California and Ohio over stadium theaters' alleged ADA violations. Across the country, many consumers have gone through the protection and advocacy agencies in their states, which protect the legal rights of people with disabilities, to file complaints.

But suing after a theater has been built is complicated. Dominguez notes, "Stadium seating is clearly the wave of the future. If theater owners keep the goals of the ADA in mind prior to construction they can build these theaters so that they provide full use of wheelchairs with a comparable line of sight. If you can get to them before construction starts, particularly given the fact that the only case that is out there says this violates the ADA, that's a pretty strong weapon."

McCruden says the Baltimore County Commission on Disability, where he works, put the county on notice about the problems with stadium seating. "New theaters are now being double-checked by the planning commission people," he says. "A staff person for the Baltimore County Commission on Disabilities has to OK all the building stuff that comes up. So he's now double-checking everything."

Meanwhile, attorney Simon Walton in Baltimore is seeking an injunction against the three Hoyt theaters, asking them "to redesign the cinemas to make them accessible. Basically they all violate Title III of the ADA. People in wheelchairs don't have reasonably comfortable facilities."

Some theaters may argue that, if people with disabilities can enter a theater, it meets the law's requirements. But according to the Texas case, that's not ADA compliance. Walton says, "The lines of sight have to be comfortable."

The ADA allows defendants to argue that making a facility accessible would cause "undue financial hardship" or "fundamentally alter the nature" of the facility. Walton doesn't think these arguments would hold up with nationwide movie chains.

"I think they will have a serious problem with that. This is new construction, which has much higher standards than the old buildings. It's inexcusable and I don't see how they will get around it. Also, we are talking about people with bottomless pockets, aren't we?"

FANTASIA

When Walt Disney World promotes its accommodations for visitors with disabilities, it makes Larry McIver mad. While the huge amusement park in Orlando, Fla., welcomes service dogs and distributes guidebooks on accessibility and showcases its rides for visitors of all abilities, McIver notices how Disney World continues to expand its facilities in ways that aren't always disability-friendly.

McIver has filed a lawsuit against Disney World alleging that some countertops are too high, some bathroom doors are too heavy, some attractions aren't accessible to people in wheelchairs and some of the parking areas aren't properly marked. These violations exist in all areas of Disney World, including the Animal Kingdom, which was built after the ADA went into effect, McIver says. On a recent visit to Disney World, he found that the new Boardwalk Hotel has a sloping ramp that lacks the required rails or level landings.

McIver isn't the only person with a disability to sue or file Justice Department complaints against Disney World alleging ADA violations. People with hearing disabilities, amputees and other wheelchair users have also found Disney's accommodations lacking.

In its response to his lawsuit, Disney says the areas McIver's highlighting weren't designed for people with disabilities and denies that there's any accessibility problem. McIver and his attorney are preparing to involve expert witnesses.

A civilian employee of the U.S. Navy, McIver calls Disney's attitude "arrogant" and says the company considers itself "a government unto itself." Citing the 1998 compensation package of some $580 million received by Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner, McIver says, "Now, if it was a Ma and Pa operation, it would be a different story. But a company with that kind of money can afford a couple million dollars to remove barriers, even in the parks that were built before 1990."

McIver, who serves as chairman of the Charleston County Mayor's Committee on Disabilities, has filed scores of lawsuits against stores, hotels, restaurants and other public places in his hometown of Charleston, S.C., and in places where he travels. When he spots an accessibility problem, McIver usually approaches the owner first and requests a change -- a ramp, a curb cut, etc. -- and sometimes the change is made. When it isn't, he sues.

McIver says he sues to open a discussion and because "nothing else seems to work." He points out that the ADA isn't enforced by local or state building officials.

"If there's nobody out there to inspect for ADA compliance, that only leaves three options: (1) voluntary compliance, (2) file a complaint with the Department of Justice, which could take years, if they even accept the suit, or (3) a private lawsuit."

Lawsuits under the ADA don't allow plaintiffs to sue for punitive damages, McIver says. If he wins a suit, the only outcome is "injunctive relief, which means they have to correct the situation and then cover your fees."

THE ROAD WARRIOR

A young mother takes her child to the park, to the library and on shopping errands a few blocks from home. In Sandusky, Ohio, 31-year-old Kelly Dillery straps 5-year-old Kelsi onto her lap with a seatbelt and heads out in her power wheelchair.

Dillery drew national attention last year when, in response to citizen complaints, she was arrested for being a pedestrian in a street and for child endangerment. She argued that she used sidewalks when possible, but when there were no usable curb cuts, she had to go into the streets. She denied placing her child in any danger. (A claim that Kelsi had been grazed by the mirror of a passing vehicle wasn't proved.)

Dillery continues to pursue the accessibility problem. Her attorney, K. Ronald Bailey, has filed an ADA complaint in federal court alleging that the sidewalks are noncompliant, and that the courthouse where his client was tried, despite extensive remodeling since 1992, is also out of compliance. The suit also alleges intentional discrimination against Dillery, and Bailey believes she's still being singled out.

The arrest drew attention from disability activists across the country, who thought the community should be more concerned by the city's failure to bring its sidewalks up to ADA standards. Dillery received two $50 fines for being in the street, and was acquitted in March on the child endangerment charges.

Since the March ruling, the police have stopped Dillery once, while she was on the sidewalk. "They said, 'Were you in the street?' I said, 'I was when I was crossing the road.'"

Dillery says the city hasn't fixed the sidewalks, and she hasn't changed her way of getting around town. "I'm still doing what I gotta do," she said, though her daughter is growing too large to be carried in her lap.

Bailey adds, "Part of my upset with the whole criminal case was, everybody wants to tell Kelly how she should live her life."

As for Dillery, "I want to make the city be aware that I'm not the only one out there and that they have to be more accessible."

BUS STOP

Tedde Scharf took an unexpected hiatus from a lifetime of independence and disability advocacy last year. One day in June, as she was getting off the public bus she rides home from work in Tempe, Ariz., the wheelchair lift malfunctioned. A barrier is supposed to rise at the end of the lift to keep chairs from sliding off before the lift reaches the ground, but this time it failed.

Scharf tumbled four feet onto the sidewalk and suffered massive injuries.

"My feet were smashed and my ankles were smashed. Crushed or pulverized are the words the doctors used," she says. "Both the tibiae and fibulae [leg bones] were broken and both wrists. In my right shoulder a rotator cuff was torn. And a cushion in my neck was crushed."

Her attorneys have filed a lawsuit naming the regional transportation authority, the cities of Tempe and Phoenix, the bus manufacturer and the lift manufacturer, and asking for damages and coverage of Scharf's medical expenses and wheelchair damage.

The financial costs of the accident quickly exceeded what insurance would cover.

"I have doctor bills in lien status at the hospital and medical care gets very expensive," says the former member of MDA's Board of Directors. "There is no way I can pay it. I have many thousands in doctor bills. It's mind-boggling. I have hospital bills, rehab care, nursing care.

"The insurance cut off after the first four weeks. I was literally in casts on all four limbs and they said I was custodial care at that point and stopped paying," Scharf says. Her attorneys had to take legal action to get the care she needed throughout her recovery.

But the physical costs of the accident go far beyond the broken bones.

Scharf, a ventilator user, has lost more of her already weakened respiratory and muscle capacities, probably permanently. "My whole upper body is much weaker than it was. I mean I was weak anyway but to lose anything that I didn't need to lose..."

One result of her weaker condition is that a bout of flu this spring lingered for weeks. "I've never been knocked completely down for that long with a flu. I have a lot of that as a result of having to lie on my back for two months." And the shoulder damage can't be repaired because her respiratory situation makes surgery inadvisable, Scharf says.

After three months, Scharf returned to her job as director of disability resources at Arizona State University with casts still on both legs.

She now finds it harder to reach a computer keyboard with her hands, so she dictates more work than she did previously. Also, "I lost a lot of volume in my ability to talk which is critical to my job."

The university has provided new accommodations and the state's Vocational Rehabilitation Department is helping to hook up a speaking system involving microphones on Scharf's wheelchair and computer.

However, buses with the type of lift involved in her accident, which fall short of the 48-inch length required by the ADA, are still in use in surrounding towns. She's concerned that riders should be warned if the unapproved lifts are in use.

Tempe uses new buses (which were on order before Scharf's accident) that have ramps instead of lifts. And she rides the new buses.