Levi’s Stadium disability access suit settled

The 49ers and Santa Clara have agreed to pay $24 million and make Levi’s Stadium and its parking lot more accessible to people with disabilities in a proposed settlement with fans in wheelchairs, who said they encountered barriers in buying tickets, parking, reaching their seats and even using the restrooms.

The settlement, now pending before a federal judge in San Jose, would be the largest ever in a classaction lawsuit over physical access to a facility by the disabled, Guy Wallace, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Wednesday. He said the payments would be divided among people with mobility impairments — perhaps as many as 6,000 — who have had access problems at the stadium since it opened in 2014.

“We’re happy to reach this resolution with the 49ers and the city,” Wallace said.

The 49ers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One plaintiff in the December 2016 lawsuit, Abdul Nevarez, said his troubles started when he and his wife, Priscilla, tried to buy 49ers tickets by phone in August 2014 They were told they had to buy them in person, despite telling a stadium legal representative that Nevarez was an amputee who used a wheelchair. When they attended a nonfootball event at the stadium in April 2015, they said, they looked for an elevator to take them to their seats, saw no signs of one, and had to contact numerous employees before being directed to an elevator.

At other games, the couple said, they tried to park in disabledaccess spaces near the stadium but were told that they were available only for seasonticket holders. The nearest available lots were a mile or more away, separated by a pedestrian path that included cracked pavement and other obstacles for wheelchairs.

Another plaintiff, Sebastian DeFrancesco, said he bought 49ers season tickets in 2016, told a team representative he needed wheelchairaccessible seats, but discovered when he arrived that the seats were at the top of a staircase. He was able to exchange them for accessible seats in another section, but had to arrange similar exchanges for every game he attended that season, he said.

DeFrancesco also said he encountered stadium doors that were difficult for him to open, food service areas with inaccessible counters, gift shops with aisles too narrow for wheelchairs, and restrooms with doors and toilets that had obstacles or hazards for the disabled.

Their lawyers contended the stadium and its lots and walkways contained nearly 2,700 “access barriers” for people with disabilities. The opposing sides negotiated a settlement through courtappointed mediators after U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh certified the suit as a class action on behalf of mobilityimpaired stadiumgoers.

Its terms include installing 282 accessible parking spaces next to the stadium, with clear paths to the main entrance and at the same prices charged in remote lots. The stadium would also provide shuttles and golf carts that were accessible to the disabled, and would allow them to buy their tickets online. Barriers in the stadium, its shops, restrooms and parking lots would be removed, and handrails would be installed to allow wheelchairs to use ramps between levels of seats.

Individuals could seek compensation of $4,000 — up to a maximum of $80,000 per person — for each time they had visited the stadium and encountered a barrier to access that caused them “difficulty, discomfort or embarrassment.” Individual amounts would be reduced if the valid claims came to more than $24 million. The plaintiffs’ lawyers will request additional sums for their fees and costs.