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Attorney Couple Defends ADA Lawsuits as Civil Rights Push

Any forceful effort to ramp up ADA compliance would certainly create a shlt storm. As long as it is just a few people suffering at the hands of greedy lawyers the ADA industry can plod along as usual. Hit thousands upon thousands of small businesses and ship ADA will sink.

It's just so asinine to reach back in time and tell people that they have to modify a structure that was legal when it was built. We all know that....yet ADA became law. Well look at a lot of other stuff that Washington did. Is it any surprise that they screwed ole Shep with this one. You know these are the same people that sent shipping containers of cash to Iraq and then lost track of the containers.

The population didn't rise up about that or a bunch of other goofy things that politicians threw at us. So why would there be an uprising about ADA. Americans figure that ADA is a good thing for a library or a Target store. The flower shop... not so much. If they knew the real cost of all that ADA is, the Americans I know would be shouting no.

So go ahead and get a head of steam..... you betcha.... steamroll over thousands of small businesses..... kill the tax base and then the politicians will get off their :butt and make changes. There's no guarantee that the changes would be any better than what we have now but I don't see how they could be much worse.

The best direction to go is toss out ADA. That will not happen. Not because ADA is a good thing but because ADA is an industry. I'll give you an example. California requires that almost all vehicles pass a smog test every two years. The test is done on us all in an effort to catch the 1% that are gross polluters. That's a huge undertaking that created an industry. There's all of the smog stations and equipment with lots of dollars changing hands. There is a government bureaucracy to oversee the industry.

How well has it performed. I don't have that information but I have heard that if you really need that smog certificate... there are ways.... and the air stinks.

Now hear what Denver did. Denver has a problem with temperature inversions that can trap smog. It can get stiflingly bad. So bad in fact that Denver decided to fix all of the polluting cars and if they were beyond repair the city would buy the car to get it off the road.

Here's how they found the 1%. Smog tests were done away with. There was a smaller fee that still had to be collected to pay for the repairs and purchases. Sensors were placed around the city that received a beam of microwave energy from across a street. The beam was sent through the exhaust trail of passing cars. If the beam of energy (could have been a laser cause I can't remember exactly....or maybe I made this whole thing up) Okay back to the beam of energy, if it was scattered or delayed in a particular way, the sensor knew that there was polluted exhaust and a camera took a picture of the license plate and you are busted.

It worked slick. A lot of polluters were found and corrected. The city of Denver has noticed a big difference in air quality. Peolple are looking at that and saying hooray the government did a good thing.

That would never work in California. Too much industry at stake. So we put ourselves out every two years and pay for the privilege.

Yes I know this has nothing to do with ADA other than that they are cousins.
 
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kilitact said:
....Safe harbor would come into play on existing buildings
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The only "Safe harbor" in the 2010 ADASAD is the building complied to the 1994 ADAAG Not the code that it was built under

In CA the changes, up to 20 percent, are required at the time of a new permit it is not retroactive AND NOT grandfathered.
 
up to 20 percent, are required at the time of a new permit it is not retroactive AND NOT grandfathered.
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Pretty standard across the country where permits are issued. On a whole there has been a big increase on barrier removals and accessibility issues. Never will all commercial buildings be accessible but over time through attrition and remodels and replacements more and more will be compliant. This will happen through education and the enforcement of building codes and not because a "civil right" was violated.

When a business is forced to spend money to comply with a regulation they are left with 2 choices.

1 Spend money on what is required.

2 Close up shop

The local radiator shop comes to mind. He could not afford the equipment needed to comply with the "new" regulations governing the pre-treatment of his waste water before discharging into the sanitary sewer. He closed shop after 22 years in the same location. The nearest radiator shop is now 120 miles away.
 
mtlogcabin

the civil rights portion is not a building department driven issue.

It is an issue for the designers, builders and owners of buildings, It is a risk management issue.
 
Agree

All I do is tell people grandpa died as far as ADA civil rights are concerned. I would like to be ahead of the lawsuits and not get caught in one because the "building department" did not inform some builder or owner that there may be ADA guidlines they need to look at in the design and construction of their project.

Fair Housing sued Missoula city building department and won because the department had an obligation to inform developers and owners of other regulatory agencies that they needed to adhere to.

Montana Fair Housing Reaches Agreement

with City of Missoula

Montana Fair Housing and the City of Missoula reached an

agreement, which settles a complaint filed with the Montana

Human Rights Bureau in April of 2003. The complaint alleged

that personnel who work for the City of Missoula were violating

fair housing laws by not providing appropriate notification to

persons “prior” to the building multi-family housing.

“Montana Fair Housing’s mission is to ensure that ALL

Montanans have equal access to housing in this state. We

believe some of the actions and information provided by

Missoula officials was allowing apartment buildings of four

units or more to be built in ways that are not accessible and

therefore, not compliant with the Federal Fair Housing Act

and the Montana Human Rights Act. We are seeing a lot of

apartment complexes going up that are built split-level—that

is stairs leading to all apartments,” stated Bob Liston.

Pursuant to the agreement, the City of Missoula will put into

place various activities that will help ensure that owners and

developers understand their responsibilities for Design and

Construction requirements under various applicable laws.

Among the items agreed to in this settlement are:

· All City officials who have anything to do with building

permits, zoning, codes, etc. will attend training conducted

by Montana Fair Housing;

· All persons requesting a building permit will be

required to sign a letter of acknowledgement of their

understanding that they may be required to follow certain

federal and state accessibility standards; and

· Montana Fair Housing and the City will jointly ask

the State of Montana for interpretation and clarification of city officials’ responsibility to inspect for federal standards
 
The city of Los Angeles has a stamp that informs the reader, for those that actually read the stamp on the plans, that the review is for compliance with the CBC and not the ADA. The contractor and the owners are responsible for compliance with the ADA.
 
mark handler said:
The only "Safe harbor" in the 2010 ADASAD is the building complied to the 1994 ADAAG Not the code that it was built under In CA the changes, up to 20 percent, are required at the time of a new permit it is not retroactive AND NOT grandfathered.
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The final rule retains the safe harbor for required elements of a path of travel to altered primary function areas for public entities that have already complied with the 1991 Standards with respect to those required elements.

It appears that any existing commercial building built before 1991 would be fair game. CA has opened another gold strike. A person can search county records for buildings built before safe harbor and than look to see if any permits have been issued since 1991. Are the owners of these buildings notified?
 
kilitact said:
The final rule retains the safe harbor for required elements of a path of travel to altered primary function areas for public entities that have already complied with the 1991 Standards with respect to those required elements.It appears that any existing commercial building built before 1991 would be fair game. CA has opened another gold strike. A person can search county records for buildings built before safe harbor and than look to see if any permits have been issued since 1991. Are the owners of these buildings notified?
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My Bad, going off memory...

"...Each facility or part of a facility altered by, on behalf of, or for the use of a public entity in a manner that affects or could affect the usability of the facility or part of the facility shall, to the maximum extent feasible, be altered in such manner that the altered portion of the facility is readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities, if the alteration was commenced after January 26, 1992...."
 
Before siding with McDonalds one should look deeper into the facts of the case. McDonalds was far from innocent.
 
Not siding with Micky D just pointing out it was not a multi million dollar payout that the majority believes. That is why the link was provided
 
jdfruit said:
A lot of sizzle but no steak so farSuggestion box still open for business
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I do not understand the thinking that "something" needs to be done to make all businesses comply with the barrier removal requirements of the ADA and it needs to be pro-active in lieu of re-active

Do not give me the answer because it is a civil right and the law of the land

The building code has language to comply with accessibility during remodels and renovations which is re-active compliance.

The only thing that should be changed and it is at the state and local levels is the pro-active enforcement by the public as encouraged by the local and state laws. It foster an us against them mentality when the abuse starts, and it always turns into abuse by a few, and that is detrimental to all

Take the $4,000 dollar "fines" and give $500.00 to the plaintiff for his/her being discriminated and put the remaining $3,500 into a fund that a small business could borrow from at a low interest to make the improvements. The business should have to qualify for the funds as a small business with limited income/profits to receive the funds.
 
mark handler said:
emporer? Emperor?Okay you are now "emporer"... fix it
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Maybe I meant Mmmmmmmmpourer.....Like bartender.....But god forbid there be accessible seating at a bar, that makes people's heads spin when you bring it up...
 
MASSDRIVER said:
Code compliance on new construction and remodel only. Should not be a civil rights issue.

Brent
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This is how it works in "socialist" Canada. Even then a lot of the times when dealing with existing there might be no way to get compliance. We just try to get as close as possible. But that is what you get when you include it in the building codes; reasonable people making a reasonable effort to provide a reasonable amount of access.
 
tmurray said:
..... reasonable people making a reasonable effort to provide a reasonable amount of access.
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We do not have reasonable people, we have extremists on both sides of the issue. And they do not make a move until it effects them or their family.
 
My sister-in-law wants to open a coffeehouse in California. This weekend she looked at taking over an existing restaurant (which does not have an accessible bathroom). She asked about what needs to be done to bring the restaurant into code compliance. The current owner said "Nothing! It's all grandfathered in, as long as you don't make changes to the building".

She visited the building department, and they told her the same thing.

So, from the "average citizen" standpoint, she thinks she's done her due diligence. She thinks that she's verified that everything is OK. She had no idea that the place was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Fortunately, she happened to call and tell me what was going on.

It took 10 minutes explaining 3 different ways that it doesn't matter what the city says, and it doesn't matter whether she does building alterations or not. It took another 5 minutes to explain the difference between building codes and civil law. She could not comprehend how easy it is to be misled into a false security / safe haven about accessibility compliance. The analogy that finally began to work with her was when I explained how OJ was acquitted of murder charges but still lost a civil suit. Then I gave her links to various small business horror stories found on this forum (thanks and a hat tip to Mark Handler for all the resources!).

She's not a dummy, and she is generally aware of news and world events. She has previously supported organizations like Joni and Friends (Joni Erickson Tada was one of the advocates and dignitaries when ADA was signed into law). She took part in SBA seminars on how to successfully open a small business, but none of the ADA/Unruh issues were covered, other than "check with your building department". (Heck, they barely could explain the difference between a planning department and a building department, let alone the difference between Title 24 and ADA.)

I understand that "ignorance of the law is no excuse", but believe me, outside of our small world of code officials, attorneys and expert witnesses, it is VERY complex for the average well-intentioned citizen to navigate the world of access compliance.
 
Good thing she was willing to listen to her bother in-law

Even outside of CA it is still a very complex issue

This is how it works in "socialist" Canada. Even then a lot of the times when dealing with existing there might be no way to get compliance. We just try to get as close as possible. But that is what you get when you include it in the building codes; reasonable people making a reasonable effort to provide a reasonable amount of access.
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Sounds pretty close to what we do here just south of Canada

Don't enforce civil rights law, just the building code and sometimes not all of it

(24) The building official may waive minor building code violations that do not constitute an imminent threat to property or to the health, safety, or welfare of any person

Administrative Rules of Montana.
 
It doesn't make sense that notification (30 day min.) bills were introduced and supported by the Governor were defeated. Realtor groups (big money) behind the defeat perhaps? Somehow the state, feds, should be required to inform all current and future commercial property owners of this Calif. requirement.
 
The so called "30 day" bills were all merged into a larger bill that gave Owners 60 days to comply and fines reduced from $4K each violation to $1K overall. A lot of other provisions including; if property was inspected by a CASp (Certified Access Specialist, a State of CA cert by testing) and found in compliance with codes with a report on file prior to the lawsuit, then plaintiff has to prove violation in pre-trial process before the suit can move forward.

Even though this has been in effect for a year, not many businesses have done the inspections.
 
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jdfruit said:
The so called "30 day" bills were all merged into a larger bill that gave Owners 90 days to comply and fines reduced from $4K each violation to $1K overall. A lot of other provisions including; if property was inspected by a CASp (Certified Access Specialist, a State of CA cert by testing) and found in compliance with codes with a report on file prior to the lawsuit, then plaintiff has to prove violation in pre-trial process before the suit can move forward.Even though this has been in effect for a year, not many businesses have done the inspections.
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Do you have the complete text of this bill or the bill number?
 
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