U.S. court: currency discriminates against the blind

A close-up of the U.S. 50 Dollar note in Washington, April 26, 2004.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department discriminates against millions of Americans who are blind or have poor vision by printing paper money that makes it impossible for them to distinguish between denominations, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday.

By a 2-1 vote, the court upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Robertson in a lawsuit filed by the American Council of the Blind seeking to force the department to redesign the U.S. paper currency.

The group has proposed several possible changes, including different sized bills for different denominations, embossed dots and raised printing. The court called such accommodations reasonable, effective and feasible.

The council accused the department and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of violating the Rehabilitation Act, which was meant to ensure that people with disabilities can live independently and fully participate in society.

The court rejected the Treasury Department's arguments that accommodating the group's proposals would impose a costly and undue burden on the government.

The appeals court sent the case back to Robertson to decide on the specific steps to be taken in granting the group's request for relief.

"A large majority of other currency systems have accommodated the visually impaired, and the secretary does not explain why U.S. currency should be any different," Judge Judith Rogers wrote in the appeal court's opinion.

Rogers said millions of individuals with visual impairment face daily obstacles in using U.S. paper currency. She cited a 1995 study that found that more than 3.7 million Americans are visually impaired, of whom 200,000 are blind.

The court rejected the government's arguments that the visually impaired can get by relying on other people, such as store clerks, for help, buying expensive electronic equipment, folding corners to distinguish different bills or using credit cards.

Rogers said the government's argument was like saying that the disabled were not denied meaningful access to public buildings because they can crawl on all fours or rely on the assistance of strangers.

The court said the financial costs would not be that great, especially if the accommodations were made as part of other planned changes in the currency. The last major redesigns of paper currency occurred in 1996 and 2004 to protect against counterfeiting.

Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented.

He disagreed that the proposed changes were reasonable, effective and feasible, and cited government evidence that it would cost billions of dollars to alter private vending machines and automated tellers if the bill size was changed.

A Justice Department spokesman said, "We're reviewing the court's ruling at this juncture and no determination has been made as to the government's next step in this matter."

The ruling could be appealed to the full appeals court or to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Editing by Anthony Boadle)