mark handler
SAWHORSE
Disability lawsuits: shakedown or legit?
March 9, 2012
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/parking-343876-langer-don.html
El Don Liquor. If you've spent any time hanging out in Huntington Beach, it's that place across PCH from the pier, a couple of doors down from Jack's surfboards, where you can get a soda or an ice cream bar on a hot day.
Housed in a 110-year-old two-story building that it shares with a pizza joint and upstairs apartments (communal bathroom in the hall!), it is a survivor of all the redevelopment. Like Perq's, Jack's, the Sugar Shack, and a few others, it's hung in there.
"I went there as a kid," attorney Javier Van Oordt told me this week. "Everybody's gone into El Don."
Well, everybody, perhaps but a man named Chris Langer. According to a recent lawsuit he filed against El Don's owner, Langer, a paraplegic who must use a wheelchair, was unable to go into the liquor store one day last July because it did not have handicap parking. Langer is asking the court to require El Don to provide handicap parking under the Americans with Disabilities Act and for $4,000 in damages (plus legal fees and expenses) allowed under state law.
Langer has filed at least 47 such cases since 2007 in Orange County, court records show, and more than 300 since 2002 in San Diego County, which is where he and his long-time lawyer are located.
Is Langer a shakedown artist or a legitimate advocate for the disabled? I wanted to ask him about his motivations, successes and profitability, but his attorney, Mark Potter, did not return my phone call.
But it was very easy to talk to El Don's owner, Rebecca Pilette, and her attorney, Van Oordt. I met Pilette at her store one morning last week.
Her father, Eldon Bagstad, bought the building at 416 PCH in about 1960. It had been a hotel. He converted half the downstairs to a liquor store in 1972. Rebecca used to work behind the counter. There was on-street parking for awhile, but PCH was restriped, and over the years it became such that the only parking associated with the building was four spaces tucked behind it.
To access the four spaces – or to even know they are there – a motorist must enter the alley a block away, passing close to, as her attorney notes, at least one public parking lot that does have handicap parking. In other words, if Langer was going to El Don "to buy some items," as his lawsuit alleges – and not merely prowling for potential ADA violations – it is quite probable he would have found handicap parking nearby before he ever realized El Don was (allegedly) in violation of ADA parking requirements.
Legislation in 2009 was supposed to curtail abuse of the system, in which some plaintiffs had six-figure damage claims. Now, the most plaintiffs can get is $4,000 per violation, and only if they are personally impacted. Pilette says she offered $1,500 to settle; Potter wanted $12,000. Van Oordt sounded to me like he was ready for trial, although he wasn't sharing his defense strategy.
Pilette also hired Steve Schraibman of San Diego, an architect and ADA-compliance consultant. He calls people like Langer and Potter "drive-by litigants."
"We get one to three cases by Potter a week right now," he told me. "The sweet spot is $12,000." Even though the court can't award more than $4,000 per violation, he explained, when potential legal expenses are totaled up, most defendants see it's worth $12,000 to make the lawsuit go away.
Potter's firm is called The Center for Disability Access. Its Web site says it has been litigating disability claims since 1996 and that "there is no firm that has had a bigger impact on disability access law in the entire nation."
A firm partner, Russell Handy, won a big case against Del Taco, in which the California Supreme Court ruled that a business need not intentionally discriminate against the disabled to be in violation of the law. For this, the firm's Web site says, Handy was named California Lawyer magazine's "Attorney of the Year" for 2010. (Although, according to the magazine's Web site, Handy was one of 27 lawyers named "Attorneys of the Year.")
There's great value in disabled-rights litigation, but the practice of just driving around and trying to pick-up $4,000 (or $12,000) a pop sounds a lot more like a shakedown than a civil-rights movement.
Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com
March 9, 2012
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/parking-343876-langer-don.html
El Don Liquor. If you've spent any time hanging out in Huntington Beach, it's that place across PCH from the pier, a couple of doors down from Jack's surfboards, where you can get a soda or an ice cream bar on a hot day.
Housed in a 110-year-old two-story building that it shares with a pizza joint and upstairs apartments (communal bathroom in the hall!), it is a survivor of all the redevelopment. Like Perq's, Jack's, the Sugar Shack, and a few others, it's hung in there.
"I went there as a kid," attorney Javier Van Oordt told me this week. "Everybody's gone into El Don."
Well, everybody, perhaps but a man named Chris Langer. According to a recent lawsuit he filed against El Don's owner, Langer, a paraplegic who must use a wheelchair, was unable to go into the liquor store one day last July because it did not have handicap parking. Langer is asking the court to require El Don to provide handicap parking under the Americans with Disabilities Act and for $4,000 in damages (plus legal fees and expenses) allowed under state law.
Langer has filed at least 47 such cases since 2007 in Orange County, court records show, and more than 300 since 2002 in San Diego County, which is where he and his long-time lawyer are located.
Is Langer a shakedown artist or a legitimate advocate for the disabled? I wanted to ask him about his motivations, successes and profitability, but his attorney, Mark Potter, did not return my phone call.
But it was very easy to talk to El Don's owner, Rebecca Pilette, and her attorney, Van Oordt. I met Pilette at her store one morning last week.
Her father, Eldon Bagstad, bought the building at 416 PCH in about 1960. It had been a hotel. He converted half the downstairs to a liquor store in 1972. Rebecca used to work behind the counter. There was on-street parking for awhile, but PCH was restriped, and over the years it became such that the only parking associated with the building was four spaces tucked behind it.
To access the four spaces – or to even know they are there – a motorist must enter the alley a block away, passing close to, as her attorney notes, at least one public parking lot that does have handicap parking. In other words, if Langer was going to El Don "to buy some items," as his lawsuit alleges – and not merely prowling for potential ADA violations – it is quite probable he would have found handicap parking nearby before he ever realized El Don was (allegedly) in violation of ADA parking requirements.
Legislation in 2009 was supposed to curtail abuse of the system, in which some plaintiffs had six-figure damage claims. Now, the most plaintiffs can get is $4,000 per violation, and only if they are personally impacted. Pilette says she offered $1,500 to settle; Potter wanted $12,000. Van Oordt sounded to me like he was ready for trial, although he wasn't sharing his defense strategy.
Pilette also hired Steve Schraibman of San Diego, an architect and ADA-compliance consultant. He calls people like Langer and Potter "drive-by litigants."
"We get one to three cases by Potter a week right now," he told me. "The sweet spot is $12,000." Even though the court can't award more than $4,000 per violation, he explained, when potential legal expenses are totaled up, most defendants see it's worth $12,000 to make the lawsuit go away.
Potter's firm is called The Center for Disability Access. Its Web site says it has been litigating disability claims since 1996 and that "there is no firm that has had a bigger impact on disability access law in the entire nation."
A firm partner, Russell Handy, won a big case against Del Taco, in which the California Supreme Court ruled that a business need not intentionally discriminate against the disabled to be in violation of the law. For this, the firm's Web site says, Handy was named California Lawyer magazine's "Attorney of the Year" for 2010. (Although, according to the magazine's Web site, Handy was one of 27 lawyers named "Attorneys of the Year.")
There's great value in disabled-rights litigation, but the practice of just driving around and trying to pick-up $4,000 (or $12,000) a pop sounds a lot more like a shakedown than a civil-rights movement.
Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com