5 ms·

Predatory? I don’t see the problem with demanding these businesses, or their landlords, comply with the law to make them accessible.

• devnulloverflow 7y ago
  > comply with the law It's not a defense of a bad law to say that it forces people to by "comply with the law".
• lallysingh 7y ago
  Exactly! The lawsuits are what's supposed to happen.
• Sebguer 7y ago
  Seriously. What a bizarre narrative to push.
• blakesterz 7y ago
  The problem, according to the article isn't that, it's some law firms are doing this in a predatory way. "But in California unscrupulous lawyers bypass the law’s good intentions by taking advantage of the state’s generous payouts to disabled individuals who sue, often targeting hundreds of small businesses at once, according to Sacramento-based small business defense attorney Rick Morin. For many ADA cases, the minimum in statutory damages starts at $4,000."
• erobbins 7y ago
  Do you believe this person suffered $60k in damages by not being able to buy a coffee?
  • erichocean 7y ago
    *By not being able to buy coffee from the vendor at this particular location, instead of the ADA-compliant location two blocks away…
  • wlesieutre 7y ago
    It’s not necessarily about how much damages they suffered. Statutory damages also serve as a deterrent and a way of motivating plaintiffs to pursue ADA compliance suits. In CA’s cast it looks like statutory damages are up to 3x the damages, with a minimum of $4000. That minimum can apply multiple times, as in Hubbard v. Twin Oaks Health and Rehabilitation. >Plaintiff asserts that, because the minimum statutory amount is $4,000.00 per violation, and she encountered the architectural barriers a minimum of 15 times, she is entitled to damages in the amount of $60,000. Given that defendant does not present any viable evidence to the contrary, plaintiff will be awarded the statutory minimum of $4,000.00 per violation, totaling $60,000. https://www.leagle.com/decision/20041331408fsupp2d92311235 https://www.leagle.com/decision/20041331408fsupp2d92311235
    • Dylan16807 7y ago
      The question is whether they were being predatory. Visiting 15 times to put a multiplier on statutory damages, which were already 500x the actual damage, is predatory. $4000 is a nice kick in the pants but there should be a large delay before the same person can get a second instance of statutory payout, if ever.
  • kube-system 7y ago
    If businesses only had to pay the actual provable amount of damages caused by non-compliance, few businesses would find it remotely worthwhile to comply. That's why the ADA allows for more.
• deleted 7y ago
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• stanferder 7y ago
  When one person associated with the attorney is a plaintiff in 200 lawsuits, it does start to seem opportunistic. Nevertheless, I can't understand why someone would open a cafe in 2007 at a site that wasn't compliant with a 1990 law without budgeting for bringing it into compliance.
  • Pfhreak 7y ago
    > When one person associated with the attorney is a plaintiff in 200 lawsuits, it does start to seem opportunistic. Wait, why? Certainly one would expect that a lawyer might have a specialization, say, ADA compliance. And you'd equally expect that a person in a wheelchair who is more likely to notice/care about ADA compliance. It doesn't strike me as that odd, it just seems like, "Hey, why is the city I live in so busted for me? I thought there was a law that was supposed to give me access? Why is no one paying attention to that law?"
    • oh_sigh 7y ago
      Because the lawyer allegedly had her ex-husband pretend to be disabled in order to file the lawsuits. Lawsuits require standing, which is defined as basically injury or adverse effect done to the suing party. Without that, you cannot sue(and expect to win).
      • Pfhreak 7y ago
        That's a different concern though. 200 lawsuits in and of itself isn't a problem. Pretending to be disabled to try and get standing is.
        • oh_sigh 7y ago
          OP said it starts to seem opportunistic, which I think is true, even if the party is actually disabled. Because the odds that a regular disabled person would encounter 200 unique buildings over a year that they couldn't access because of their disability seems quite slim. And the opportunistic part comes in because these lawsuits are almost always "Fix the problem for $5*X, or pay me personally $X and I will drop the suit".
• c0restraint 7y ago
  Yes, predatory. From the article: > The disabled man’s attorney, Tanya E. Moore, for years has been the subject of much scrutiny for suing thousands of small businesses across the South Bay, filing more than 1,400 ADA cases in recent years. The suits have forced mom and pop shops like Cafe Crema to close, as many owners can’t afford to bring their businesses up to code or settle. A little less than three years ago, a beloved San Jose staple, Time Deli, had to shut its doors for the same reason. > About two years ago, Moore was faced with a federal racketeering civil lawsuit for filing lawsuits based on “false allegations” of disability and injury, first reported by the Fresno Bee. I wonder how many businesses will be left when Moore is done.
  • Pfhreak 7y ago
    I don't see anything predatory there? 1,400 businesses were potentially breaking the law and denying access to people with disabilities, shouldn't they be the subject of suits?
    • BoorishBears 7y ago
      If you don't see the problem, that's intentional. How many ADA complainants end up facing federal racketeering charges?
    • wpietri 7y ago
      The theory of the ADA is that rather than just enforce everything via bureaucracy, we'd give individuals the right of private action to push for the accommodations they need. Then we get a hopefully-good level of accommodation without a lot of the kind of waste that goes with central planning. But if somebody is going to use the legal system to make a lot of money by generating spurious complaints for every business in an area, then that's not the right mechanism. If every business should be immediately compliant, we should just make it part of the building code and/or part of the business licensing process.
      • Pfhreak 7y ago
        Are there federally enforced building codes?
• awinder 7y ago
  What is being labeled as predatory was the scheme being led that had the lawyers husband fake a disability in order to launch these lawsuits (200 in one year, over 2000 total). And that it was specifically targeted at small businesses of a size/condition that they would really be susceptible to the lawsuits. There was also some light witness tampering and evidence destruction as a part of the RICO case against this attorney, so yeah, I think in this one case, there really was some wild stuff going on.
  • Pfhreak 7y ago
    In this case the specific lawsuit against this coffeeshop was labeled predatory which was filed by "a disabled San Jose man", which seems to be someone other than the attorney's ex husband Ronald.
    • wang_li 7y ago
      They're apparently asking for something on the order of $60,000 for not being able to go into a cafe and get a cup of coffee. That seems quite far beyond the damages incurred. sounds predatory to me.
      • astura 7y ago
        That is statutory damages, not compensatory damages. Statutory damages are written into the statue, not a payment for damages actually incurred. The ADA is mostly enforced by private plaintiffs, that's the way the law was written. Nationally the ADA doesn't allow for private plaintiffs to profit from ADA lawsuits, however, a few states (like California) have statutes that do. Of course, a big problem is the businesses don't have a mandatory warning with a grace period to become compliant, it's just now you have a lawsuit. This can create "professional plaintiffs." Then again, the ADA is a civil rights law, and other civil rights laws aren't like that, you don't get "one free racial discrimination," and I don't think that many people would want that.
        • wang_li 7y ago
• wpietri 7y ago
  I don't think there's anything wrong with customers demanding ADA compliance. But the accusation here is that the lawyer involved is creating rafts of complaints, possibly false ones, to extract settlement cash. That would indeed be predatory. I think the ADA on the whole is good, but the burden can fall disproportionately on small businesses. An awful lot of people's favorite neighborhood businesses are more or less break even; as here, a sudden, large expense can be fatal. I'd prefer it if there were programs to help existing small businesses convert. Making society available to everybody is everybody's business.
  • zip1234 7y ago
    Yes, it sounds like in this case there is systematic targeting of certain sized businesses in order to extract the maximum amount of cash. Big companies can afford compliance and lawyers. The little companies may not be able to.
  • jxramos 7y ago
    Might even be a business possibility for someone knowledgeable with the law and how to demonstrate objective compliance. I thought in an earlier comment maybe a chamber of commerce could develop something, or some locals with disabilities who would like to be part of the process and maybe even used as witnesses.
• deleted 7y ago
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• triceratops 7y ago
  Yes and no. Businesses that aren't ADA-compliant are violating the law. But the motives of many of those filing are also suspect. From the article: "The disabled man’s attorney, Tanya E. Moore, for years has been the subject of much scrutiny for suing thousands of small businesses across the South Bay, filing more than 1,400 ADA cases in recent years...The attorney who filed the lawsuit, Moji Saniefar, claims Moore’s ex-husband Ronald, who is a plaintiff in more than 200 filed cases, faked a disability in order “to collect quick settlements." So in this case, the filing attorney is being sued for fraud? (I'm not a lawyer). Not a good look. But going on.. "...in California unscrupulous lawyers bypass the law’s good intentions by taking advantage of the state’s generous payouts to disabled individuals who sue, often targeting hundreds of small businesses at once, according to Sacramento-based small business defense attorney Rick Morin. For many ADA cases, the minimum in statutory damages starts at $4,000." Sounds like patent troll tactics. Damages large enough to add up to serious money at scale, but small enough that they aren't worth fighting for the defendant. "These “shakedown” lawsuits, added Morin, are often based on small, “technical violations” that can be easily fixed if a letter is sent to the business owner. But under California law, a disabled person cannot claim money if they send the business owner a letter with their complaint first." Which means the money is more important than fixing anything. A business that couldn't afford to become ADA-compliant can definitely not afford to fix it after paying a settlement. And it's very well possible that money that could have gone into fixing the problem for all future disabled customers (surely the actual point of the law) is instead going to attorneys and plaintiffs. Bottomline: no one comes out looking good in this particular case. If this cafe's ADA retrofit is going to cost $100k then it wasn't an easy fix and the business owner should have done better research into the law before renting/buying that location. But there also seems to be a non-zero number of BS lawsuits incentivized by the way the law is right now.
• BurningFrog 7y ago
  What you hear from people "on the ground" is that ADA is written in a way that makes it very difficult to comply with. An experienced ADA "predator" can find some technical violation in most any place of business, and make a profit suing for it. Normally, these technical flaws have no real impact on accessibility for actual disabled people. It's just a legal quirk. Or so I've read/heard in a few places. I have no personal insight, so take this post FWIW!
  • deleted 7y ago
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