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Modesto Bee's View: Help the disabled by fixing ADA lawsuits
September 6, 2014
http://www.modbee.com/2014/09/06/3522752_our-view-help-the-disabled-by.html?rh=1
HOW TO FIX THE ADA
• Stop allowing lawsuits when the plaintiff has not been harmed.
• Require significant portions of settlements to be paid to organizations in the locality where the suit is brought.
• Require any “technical violations” to be noted and give business owners a chance to cure before fines are assessed.
• Have local inspectors (perhaps paid by the state) enforce rules, not lawyers. They would levy fines, not award damages.
• Local governments could provide certified access specialists to inspect local businesses for compliance.
They remind us of something slimy, these bottom-feeding attorneys and their professional victims running a legal extortion scam perpetrated in the name of protecting the disabled.
The stories by Modesto Bee reporter Garth Stapley and Merced Sun-Star reporter Ramona Giwargis – “Taking a stand v. Taking advantage” – over the past two weekends rolled away the rocks to expose lawyers who send people into small communities to find the most minuscule violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act then threaten to sue. Business owners, afraid of costly litigation – but recognizing the complaints have some validity – pay the lawyers rather than fight. Or they go out of business.
Once a scam, it’s grown into a racket and has made millionaires of some unscrupulous lawyers and their accomplices pretending to be victims. If they were sincere, their settlements would require violations to be fixed; but that’s rare.
As angry as this makes us, the reason this racket works is that there are far, far too many barriers that keep the wheelchair-bound, blind and other disabled citizens from fully participating in life. And while we want to stop these despicable financial predators, we must do more to help the disabled. Allowing such a misuse of the legal system is not helping them, and that must change.
It’s unfortunate the ADA is necessary – but it is. Across the nation, there are still steps where there should be ramps, doors with handles too high and parking lots without handicapped spaces.
When Megan Schiffman goes shopping with her mother – which she loves doing 15 years after a riding accident robbed her of mobility – it is often impossible to get her wheelchair between racks of clothes. Sometimes, sales people move the racks apart; then, when Megan leaves, they put them right back – in the way of the next disabled shopper. Megan rarely complains; her parents get angry, but they don’t sue.
A sad result of these stories is that the disabled can become further ostracized when businesspeople – fearing lawsuits – become terrified upon seeing a wheelchair roll toward their doors. Some, we’re told, turn off the lights and hide.
According to the Civil Justice Association of California – whose executive director is a Stanford-educated lawyer – there are roughly 30 to 40 of these predatory lawyers working in California, home to nearly half of all ADA lawsuits. One used an undocumented immigrant, collecting government assistance despite two felony convictions, to file 800 lawsuits and rake in $1.2 million before he was deported.
Kim Stone isn’t sure what makes her maddest. But the CJAC’s executive director points out: “I’m not anti-disabled people; I’m anti-parasitic trial lawyers. The disabled community is a community that any of us could join at any time.”
When President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, he didn’t want the law to be a burden to local governments, so he and Republican lawmakers insisted it rely on the courts for enforcement. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act put a $4,000 fine on each violation and directed the proceeds to “aggrieved” parties, even if they weren’t harmed or inconvenienced by the violation. A business could be sued for faded paint on an open handicapped parking spot, a ramp 2 degrees too steep, incorrect wording on a sign. A practiced eye can spot half a dozen violations most anywhere, said Stone, and that’s a $24,000 jackpot for a scammer.
Soon, predatory attorneys caught on. That’s where the Democrats came in. Eleven times since 2003, Stone’s Civil Justice Association has pushed legislation (one carried by former Sen. Bill Berryhill) that would have changed the laws – giving business owners a chance to fix the problems. Each time, it failed, said Stone, because Democrats working for trial lawyers killed it.
There are other ways to fix this broken legal process, but all seem out of reach.
Stone’s organization has tried to create a distinction between “technical” violations and actual barriers – the difference between a parking space 2 inches too narrow and a bathroom stall that won’t accommodate a wheelchair. But that failed, too.
How about an initiative? That requires a campaign, and campaigns cost money.
“Small business is never going to fund it,” Stone said. “The (big businesses) already pay people whose job it is to make sure they’re (following the rules). And the restaurant owner is too busy making doughnuts.”
Private business has stepped in. Certified inspectors – charging around $250 an hour – will issue a certificate of compliance. But if the business owner is sued, all that provides is a place at the front of the courtroom line.
There are no permanent fixes because ADA rules change constantly. Two years ago, signs next to handicapped parking spaces had to read “No parking.” Now, signs must warn that the fine is $250. Stone calls that a “perfect example” of a violation that is not a barrier. If a business owner hasn’t put up a new sign, he should be given an opportunity to fix it before having to pay some lawyer $4,000.
If unscrupulous lawyers and phony victims are taking advantage of a 24-year-old law to harm so many – business owners, customers and the very people the ADA was designed to protect – then the law has clearly failed. It’s time to fix it. It’s time the law included some justice.
Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2014/09/06/3522752_our-view-help-the-disabled-by.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
September 6, 2014
http://www.modbee.com/2014/09/06/3522752_our-view-help-the-disabled-by.html?rh=1
HOW TO FIX THE ADA
• Stop allowing lawsuits when the plaintiff has not been harmed.
• Require significant portions of settlements to be paid to organizations in the locality where the suit is brought.
• Require any “technical violations” to be noted and give business owners a chance to cure before fines are assessed.
• Have local inspectors (perhaps paid by the state) enforce rules, not lawyers. They would levy fines, not award damages.
• Local governments could provide certified access specialists to inspect local businesses for compliance.
They remind us of something slimy, these bottom-feeding attorneys and their professional victims running a legal extortion scam perpetrated in the name of protecting the disabled.
The stories by Modesto Bee reporter Garth Stapley and Merced Sun-Star reporter Ramona Giwargis – “Taking a stand v. Taking advantage” – over the past two weekends rolled away the rocks to expose lawyers who send people into small communities to find the most minuscule violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act then threaten to sue. Business owners, afraid of costly litigation – but recognizing the complaints have some validity – pay the lawyers rather than fight. Or they go out of business.
Once a scam, it’s grown into a racket and has made millionaires of some unscrupulous lawyers and their accomplices pretending to be victims. If they were sincere, their settlements would require violations to be fixed; but that’s rare.
As angry as this makes us, the reason this racket works is that there are far, far too many barriers that keep the wheelchair-bound, blind and other disabled citizens from fully participating in life. And while we want to stop these despicable financial predators, we must do more to help the disabled. Allowing such a misuse of the legal system is not helping them, and that must change.
It’s unfortunate the ADA is necessary – but it is. Across the nation, there are still steps where there should be ramps, doors with handles too high and parking lots without handicapped spaces.
When Megan Schiffman goes shopping with her mother – which she loves doing 15 years after a riding accident robbed her of mobility – it is often impossible to get her wheelchair between racks of clothes. Sometimes, sales people move the racks apart; then, when Megan leaves, they put them right back – in the way of the next disabled shopper. Megan rarely complains; her parents get angry, but they don’t sue.
A sad result of these stories is that the disabled can become further ostracized when businesspeople – fearing lawsuits – become terrified upon seeing a wheelchair roll toward their doors. Some, we’re told, turn off the lights and hide.
According to the Civil Justice Association of California – whose executive director is a Stanford-educated lawyer – there are roughly 30 to 40 of these predatory lawyers working in California, home to nearly half of all ADA lawsuits. One used an undocumented immigrant, collecting government assistance despite two felony convictions, to file 800 lawsuits and rake in $1.2 million before he was deported.
Kim Stone isn’t sure what makes her maddest. But the CJAC’s executive director points out: “I’m not anti-disabled people; I’m anti-parasitic trial lawyers. The disabled community is a community that any of us could join at any time.”
When President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, he didn’t want the law to be a burden to local governments, so he and Republican lawmakers insisted it rely on the courts for enforcement. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act put a $4,000 fine on each violation and directed the proceeds to “aggrieved” parties, even if they weren’t harmed or inconvenienced by the violation. A business could be sued for faded paint on an open handicapped parking spot, a ramp 2 degrees too steep, incorrect wording on a sign. A practiced eye can spot half a dozen violations most anywhere, said Stone, and that’s a $24,000 jackpot for a scammer.
Soon, predatory attorneys caught on. That’s where the Democrats came in. Eleven times since 2003, Stone’s Civil Justice Association has pushed legislation (one carried by former Sen. Bill Berryhill) that would have changed the laws – giving business owners a chance to fix the problems. Each time, it failed, said Stone, because Democrats working for trial lawyers killed it.
There are other ways to fix this broken legal process, but all seem out of reach.
Stone’s organization has tried to create a distinction between “technical” violations and actual barriers – the difference between a parking space 2 inches too narrow and a bathroom stall that won’t accommodate a wheelchair. But that failed, too.
How about an initiative? That requires a campaign, and campaigns cost money.
“Small business is never going to fund it,” Stone said. “The (big businesses) already pay people whose job it is to make sure they’re (following the rules). And the restaurant owner is too busy making doughnuts.”
Private business has stepped in. Certified inspectors – charging around $250 an hour – will issue a certificate of compliance. But if the business owner is sued, all that provides is a place at the front of the courtroom line.
There are no permanent fixes because ADA rules change constantly. Two years ago, signs next to handicapped parking spaces had to read “No parking.” Now, signs must warn that the fine is $250. Stone calls that a “perfect example” of a violation that is not a barrier. If a business owner hasn’t put up a new sign, he should be given an opportunity to fix it before having to pay some lawyer $4,000.
If unscrupulous lawyers and phony victims are taking advantage of a 24-year-old law to harm so many – business owners, customers and the very people the ADA was designed to protect – then the law has clearly failed. It’s time to fix it. It’s time the law included some justice.
Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2014/09/06/3522752_our-view-help-the-disabled-by.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
