Last week, Ted posted a court decision about a lawyer/client team who have turned the Americans with Disabilities Act — in theory, a law designed to protect actual consumers — into a full-time career, patronizing businesses for the specific purpose of being able to sue them. Not all such lawyer/client teams bother to even take the step of patronizing the businesses, however; some just skip the damages and go right to the extortion, hoping the defendants will pay rather than spend the money to defend themselves.

Many times, their business model works, but occasionally, it backfires, as it did last week on serial ADA litigant Theodore Pinnock. (Technically, Pinnock is the attorney, not the plaintiff. But why split hairs? The plaintiffs, Delores Jackson and the imaginary organization she “represents,” the Association of Women with Disabilities Advocating Access, are just fronts for Pinnock.) On Friday, a federal judge in San Diego sanctioned Pinnock, ordering him to take an ethics class and pay $15,000 in attorneys fees to Marcos Mout, a defendant he had sued last October. Mout owned a convenience store, and was sued because the store was allegedly inaccessible to the disabled. Well, not quite:

Jackson, who uses a walker, said she had “researched” the store and had photographic evidence of numerous violations. In the complaint, she said she had intended to patronize the store but would have been thwarted by problems with signage, the entrance door, interior paths, counter height, parking and the restroom, among many things.

The businessman’s attorney countered that the convenience store wasn’t even open to the public at the time Jackson was allegedly denied access, having been seriously damaged in December 2004 by a flood.

Mitch Wallis, attorney for convenience store owner Marcos Mouet, also told the court that the small store, which remains shuttered, didn’t even have a public restroom. Jackson’s lawsuit also alleged that interior pathways weren’t wide enough, but Mouet’s attorney noted that the shelves had been pushed against the wall to fix the flood damage.

Yes, but aside from those issues…

Incidentally, the Bizarro-Overlawyered crowd will tell you that frivolous suits are easily, quickly, and cheaply disposed of by the courts; this case illustrates yet again how badly they misunderstand the nature of the legal system. Because the suit against Mout’s convenience store made superficially legitimate allegations, it cost Mout at least $15,000 to defend the suit. (He actually claimed legal costs of $38,000 in making his motion for sanctions, but the court found that $15,000 was a more reasonable figure.) And that was for a suit that lasted “only” five months.

Previous coverage of Pinnock: Apr. 2006

Filed under: ADA filing mills, disabled rights, ethics, San Diego, sanctions