Bus Firm Prohibited Guide Dog, Suit Says

Joe Orozco goes everywhere with his seeing-eye dog, Gator, a relationship protected by federal law. Now Orozco has sued a Chinatown bus company, claiming discrimination because employees tried to bar him and his dog from boarding buses in Washington and New York.

On New Year's Eve, employees of Todays Bus Inc. said Orozco could not bring his dog on a bus leaving downtown Washington for Manhattan. They relented only after Orozco called D.C. police, who explained federal disabilities law permitting service animals to accompany their owners, according to a suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court.

On Jan. 1, Orozco again met resistance as he and his dog tried to board another of the company's buses for the return trip to the District. That time, the suit said, they were allowed on after heated argument and a long delay -- but were instructed to go to the back of the bus.

Orozco said he spent the four-hour trip on the seat by the toilet, feeling "humiliated."

"I felt hopeless that I couldn't do anything to change what had happened," he said in an interview yesterday. ". . . I thought, if I wasn't blind, this wouldn't be happening. Being discriminated against was one thing, but having been segregated was upsetting."

Orozco, 24, is an AmeriCorps volunteer who works as a caseworker with refugees in the District. His suit alleges discrimination under the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, which prohibits discrimination in services, facilities or public accommodations. He seeks a federal order requiring the bus company to train its staff and make a formal apology, plus monetary damages.

"It's shocking that they didn't understand their obligations," said Amy Metzel, an attorney with University Legal Services, the protection and advocacy agency for D.C. residents with disabilities that is representing Orozco. "It's a very blatant case of discrimination based on disability."

A man who identified himself as the son of the owner of Todays Bus, located at 610 I St. NW, said yesterday that he regrets what happened, attributing the problems to employees' difficulties in understanding English and their lack of familiarity with the law.

"We feel bad for it," Jimmy Zhang said. "It sounds like our company is bad, but now our company knows what laws exist and what we must do."

Orozco, a Houston native who moved to the District last year, has been blind since a fall when he was 2, he said. Until he acquired Gator, a 75-pound German shepherd, in July 2004, he used a white cane to get around, he said. He described the dog, who came from the Seeing Eye in Morristown, N.J., the country's pioneer guide dog school, as "well groomed and well trained."

The incidents marred what was intended to be a New Year's holiday in New York for him and four friends, he said. Because of budget concerns, they opted to try Todays Bus for the first time, he said; a one-way ticket from the District to New York costs $20.

When Orozco reached the front of the passenger line with Gator in the District, he said, an employee prevented their boarding, saying no animals were allowed on the buses. Ignoring Gator's identification card as a service animal, the employee told Orozco that his only choice was to put the dog beneath the bus in the luggage compartment, the lawsuit alleges.

"I told him that was ridiculous," Orozco said yesterday.

Orozco said he has had minor problems with local store owners and restaurant managers who initially tried to bar his dog, then relented when he explained. "But I've never been told I couldn't get on public transportation," he said.

He said he took care to inform the company he would be returning the next day, hoping to avoid a repeat of the first incident. But when he arrived at the bus company station in Manhattan, the reaction was worse.

"There was not much of an explanation beyond, 'No dogs, you can't get on,' " he said. The bus left as the argument continued, he said, and when an employee said he could get on the next bus if he and the dog sat in the back, he agreed.

"It was cold, we were already late," he said. "The situation was such that we just wanted to get home."