Brooklyn judge questions lawsuits from disabled suing eateries

[mark handler]

Brooklyn judge questions lawsuits from disabled suing eateries, wonders if they’re attempts at generating legal fees
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...-lawsuits-disabled-eateries-article-1.2697999
A Brooklyn judge is openly questioning whether a slew of lawsuits filed by two severely disabled men — who appear to dine out as frequently as restaurant critics — are genuine demands for access to the eateries they’re suing, or a gravy train for legal fees.

In a scathing decision, Federal Judge Brian Cogan is holding up the payment of legal fees to the lawyer who sued hipster nightspot Mulholland’s in Williamsburg on behalf of Nauqone Taylor, who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease and uses a wheelchair.

The lawyer, Tara Demetriades, has filed more than 60 lawsuits under the Americans With Disabilities Act against restaurants and bars on behalf of Taylor and a Queens man, Jerry Cankat, who is a double amputee and also gets around in a motorized wheelchair. The suits allege architectural barriers prevent access inside or outside the locations.

“I have not heard him (Taylor) testify, and no one has appeared to cross-examine him . . .(but) I don’t think it’s an undue degree of cynicism to picture plaintiff driving around or being driven around in a defined circumference looking for ‘mom and pop’ businesses that seem to have a step up to get in or a ramp that looks like it’s too steep an incline,” the judge wrote.

The judge then stated what he really thought of Taylor’s claim that he wanted to patronize 21 bars and grills in the past 18 months in Brooklyn and Queens.

“It seems clear, instead, there is something else afoot here, and that foot is so big that it also seems a fair conclusion that this case has little or nothing to do with Congress’ purpose in enacting the (disabilities act),” Cogan wrote.

“It is rather an exercise in shooting ducks in a barrel — marginal businesses that barely have enough funds to defend themselves — in order to generate a small amount of attorneys’ fees.”

Mulholland’s ignored the lawsuit, but Cogan ruled that he will not sign off on legal fees until Demetriades can show she made reasonable efforts to get the bar to be more accessible to the disabled.

The serial plaintiffs cannot recover monetary damages, but their lawyer is entitled to collect legal costs.

Some lawyers for the restaurants have called the suits shakedowns.

Demetriades, who did not return a call and email seeking comment, told the Daily News last year that her clients do not profit from the cases.

 

[ICE]

The judge is just now getting an inkling that there is a problem? How is it that such smart people can be so dumb?

 

[conarb]

The judge is just now getting an inkling that there is a problem? How is it that such smart people can be so dumb?

Because judges are political appointees, they do the bidding of those who appointed them and those that can elevate them to higher judicial positions. ADA is the creation of George H.W. Bush, his father, Prescott Bush, was an advocate of going into WWII on Germany's side instead of England's side when it became obvious that Roosevelt was going into the war to bail out the economy, given a choice of Bushs I think I'd take Prescott over both his son and grandsons.

 

[ADAguy]

!!!! aren't you almost old enough to have served in WWII?
What kind of a statement is that to make?

Support ISIS too?

 

[RickAstoria]

Because judges are political appointees, they do the bidding of those who appointed them and those that can elevate them to higher judicial positions. ADA is the creation of George H.W. Bush, his father, Prescott Bush, was an advocate of going into WWII on Germany's side instead of England's side when it became obvious that Roosevelt was going into the war to bail out the economy, given a choice of Bushs I think I'd take Prescott over both his son and grandsons.

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, it kind of ended the debate on who's side we would be siding with.

 

[ADAguy]

The point here is that this Forum is not for engaging in contraryism but in "meaningful" dialogue about our topics.
All though history you can identify the strong, the weak and the bullies.
As a nation we are approaching a cross-roads unlike any previously seen, one in which we do not appear to have a strong crossing guard to lead us.

 

[conarb]

!!!! aren't you almost old enough to have served in WWII?
What kind of a statement is that to make?

Support ISIS too?

Yes, and old enough to remember the debates on which side to go in on if we had to go to war, the British Empire was at it's end and had taken over areas all over the world, including South Africa, India, and clear to Hong Kong, after the turn of the 20th century Theodore Roosevelt had sent the American fleet around the world announcing to the world the dawn of the American Empire replacing the British Empire. Meanwhile Germany had other ideas about creating it's own empire, and the Japanese had declared it's empire to encompass Asia. We were sending ships into the far east for rubber, tin, and other raw materials even though Japan had told us to stay out, our Pacific Fleet was based there, they also attacked other American colonial outposts in the far east, mostly those Roosevelt had obtained through the Spanish American War, picking up remnants of the failed Spanish Empire.

Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire of Japan planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. Over the next seven hours there were coordinated Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.¹

Through the Monroe Doctrine we had declared our empire to include the Western Hemisphere, not expansion around the world. Through the Spanish American War we had defeated the Spanish empire, elevating Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency and his threats of U.S. supremacy in the world.

After the mysterious sinking of the US Navy battleship Maine in Havana harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had wished to avoid. Spain promised time and again it would reform but never delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared war.

The defeat and collapse of the Spanish Empire was a profound shock to Spain's national psyche, and provoked a thorough philosophical and artistic revaluation of Spanish society known as the Generation of '98. The United States gained several island possessions spanning the globe and a rancorous new debate over the wisdom of expansionism. ²

Franklin Roosevelt was flouting the constitution trying to get his New Deal through, even attempting to pack the Supreme Court with new members that would approve his socialistic proposals, several prominent Americans supported going in on Germany's side, including Henry Ford, Prescott Bush, and most prominently Charles Lindbergh to stop Roosevelt's ambitions, Marine General Smedley Butler had become a hero for exposing Roosevelt's banana republic wars in Central America as nothing but wars for United Fruit, eventually a military coup was planned to overthrow Roosevelt, they chose Butler to take over but eventfully he blew the whistle on the coup. By the late 30s Lindbergh was set to run against Roosevelt but for some reason withdrew, and Wendell Wilkie, known as an "internationalist" ran and lost to Roosevelt who won an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt first said we could stay out by being the "Arsenal of Democracy", in effect making the money of war by building the munitions of war and selling them to the Allied Forces, then when they couldn't pay he set up "Lend Lease" to sell them the implements of war and loan them the money, about that time Japan Attacked and Congress declared war after his "Day of Infamy" speech. The Axis treaty between Germany, Italy, and Japan obligated Germany and Italy to go to war against us and they both declared war on us, Congress still refused to declare war on Germany and Italy but eventually passed a resolution declaring that we were in a "State of War" with Germany and Italy.

In 2010 an excellent book on Lindbergh's attempts to stop the war-mongering Roosevelt:

“In the name–calling that passes for how American history is taught these days, an authentic American hero, Charles Lindbergh, is too often dismissed as a ‘Nazi sympathizer’ because of his opposition to President Roosevelt’s war policy. Lindbergh’s actual service as an anti–Nazi spy is overlooked, as are his many contributions to the war effort, including his volunteer combat service in the Pacific. But as historian James Duffy points out in Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt, there’s a lot more to the story than that; Lindbergh was the victim of a long–standing smear campaign by a president desperate to silence one of his most prominent critics. In this excellent book, Duffy successfully restores the honor that properly belongs to Lindbergh and draws a more skeptical, and accurate, portrayal of Roosevelt. If you love reading twentieth century American history, you’ll love this book.” —Thomas E. Woods Jr., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide™to American History

“In Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt James Duffy ably describes the contrasting worldviews of Charles Lindbergh and Franklin Roosevelt. Duffy carefully and persuasively shows how FDR pushed the U.S. toward war and how Lindbergh warned against the entangling alliances that George Washington wanted Americans to avoid. Duffy shows how FDR prevailed in the war debate and how he smeared and undermined Lindbergh in the process. Duffy’s book is an excellent contribution to the research on the disappointing character of FDR as president.” —Burton Folsom Jr., author of New Deal or Raw Deal?³

After the war we formed the United Nations so that we could rule the world through the United Nations, we have been in endless wars ever since without Congress ever declaring war, we now are trying to extend the Crusades to dictate to the rest of the world through the United Nations, and force our Social Justice Agenda on the entire world, just look at the various Agenda of the United Nations, we have no business telling the rest of the world how to live, what cultures to adhere to, and what religions to believe in, why do you think the rest of the world hates us so, people hate us enough to blow themselves up to stop us.

I could write on on this for hours, but the unfortunate thing is people old enough to remember this stuff like me are soon going to be gone, history is always written by the victors, but every citizen here is indoctrinated by our schools, televisions, and social media, even our elite universities are graduating kids without even reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or Will and Ariel Durant's Story of History.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish–American_War

³ https://www.amazon.com/Lindbergh-vs...dp/1441763856?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0