- Part III of Radley Balko series on painkiller access [HuffPo]
- “Note: Add ‘Judge’s Nameplate’ to List of Things Not to Steal” [Lowering the Bar]
- California’s business-hostile climate: if the ADA mills don’t get you, other suits might [CACALA]
- Bottom story of the month: ABA president backs higher legal services budget [ABA Journal]
- After string of courtroom defeats, Teva pays to settle Nevada propofol cases [Oliver, earlier]
- Voting Rights Act has outstayed its constitutional welcome [Ilya Shapiro/Cato] More: Stuart Taylor, Jr./The Atlantic.
- Huge bust of what NY authorities say was $279 million crash-fraud ring NY Post, NYLJ, Business Insider, Turkewitz (go after dishonest docs on both sides)]
Posts Tagged ‘ADA filing mills’
Regulated if you do, sued if you don’t
The Lookout News of Santa Monica, Calif. reports on obstacles to the revitalization of the Pico Boulevard commercial district:
“Businesses on Pico have been very frustrated by code compliance regulations for years,” [Pico Improvement Organization chairman Robert] Kronovet said. “You have a business that might have a sign in the wrong place or a door that isn’t right and the city fines them to the point that they don’t want to stay.
“These are small businesses. They don’t have the money to fight it.”…
Proprietor Elvira Garcia [of Caribbean restaurant Cha Cha Chicken] says business has been terrific, but that the success has been hard-won.
“We wanted to renovate our bathroom areas to make it more handicap-accessible and it took us almost three years to get all the permits,” Garcia said.
“We kept giving all the paperwork they need, but it took forever. We needed the Pico Improvement Organization to plead our case.”
California has the nation’s most active entrepreneurial corps of ADA enforcers, roaming business districts to file mass complaints against small businesses over handicap accessibility which they then settle for cash.
Disabled rights roundup
- ADA mills continue to extract money from California small businesses with no legislative relief in sight [Auburn Journal, Andrew Ross/S.F. Chronicle, KABC (James Farkus Cohan), WTSP (Squeeze Inn owner speaks out), CJAC (Lungren proposal) and more, Chamber (San Francisco coffee shop’s woes, auto-plays video)] Profile of attorney Thomas Frankovich [California Lawyer];
- EEOC sues employer for turning away job applicant on methadone program [Jon Hyman]
- “Maryland high court: allergy is disability requiring accommodation” [PoL]
- “Suits could force L.A. to spend huge sums on sidewalk repair” [Los Angeles Times]
- Under gun from Department of Justice and SCOTUS Olmstead ruling, Virginia and other states agree to massive overhaul of services for developmentally disabled; not all families, though, are happy with the insistence on relocating residents of large facilities to smaller “community” settings [Richmond Times-Dispatch, McDonnell press release, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Staunton News-Leader]
- “New Case from W.D. Tex. Shows Effect of ADAAA on Back Injury Claims” [Disability Law]
- Lawyer leads effort to give disabled passengers wider rights to sue airlines [Toledo Free Press]
“ADA lawsuits questioned after serial plaintiff claiming emphysema caught on tape hiking”
James Farkus Cohan, who’s sued at least 161 businesses under California’s liberal version of the ADA as a disabled plaintiff, says he has end-stage emphysema, but a KABC investigation found him rather spry. Cohan’s other businesses, the station reports, include procurement of human organs for transplant. Lawmakers in Sacramento this year refused business pleas to tighten standards for filing the lucrative suits, which extract millions annually [via Lowering the Bar and Amy Alkon]
California: “Lawmakers kill fix for disability access suits”
Democrats in Sacramento are unswayed by continuing reports that Unruh Act complaint mills are extracting millions from the state’s small businesses on accessibility claims, and throttle a bill that would require notice and a chance to fix problems before suing. [Legal Pad, The Recorder, CJAC] Opponents of the fix include the trial-lawyers’ lobby, Consumer Attorneys of California. Background here; the perennially doomed equivalent bill in the U.S. Congress is discussed here. I discussed the issue on the John Stossel show last year.
“Disabled man puts the squeeze on [NYC] businesses with handicap lawsuits”
The New York Post profiles prolific ADA filer Zoltan Hirsch, who has targeted at least 87 businesses, and his lawyer, Bradley Weitz. “[Hirsch] targeted a pedicure station at the Red & White Spa in SoHo — even though he has no feet.”
Digging for ADA gold
Well-known serial ADA litigant George Louie has hit the California Gold Rush country [CJAC] Not that far away: “Serial ADA filer targets popular Davis burger joint” [same, Scott Johnson]
Sidewalks, ADA suits, and attorneys’ fees
According to Todd Roberson at CJAC, a federal court’s ruling in a 14-year dispute over street curbs and sidewalks in Riverside, California has headed off a potential “avalanche of lawsuits.” U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner ruled the complainant in the case “had failed to demonstrate that Riverside as a whole is inaccessible to the disabled.”
Riverside’s City Attorney, Greg Priamos, was quoted in the Daily Journal saying the suit was “about money, not accessibility…The only hangup to a settlement earlier in the case was the amount of attorney’s fees. I’m offended by that.”
Plaintiff drops Pennsylvania ADA complaints
After questions are raised about the timing of her claimed visits, a serial ADA plaintiff — represented by a law firm we’ve had occasion to mention before, Schwartz Zweben & Associates — drops complaints against several restaurants and other small businesses in Pennsylvania [Sunbury Item]
Another serial ADA complainant, another closed restaurant
Donner Lake Kitchen, a popular family-owned restaurant in rural Truckee, Calif. is closing its doors following a legal battle with attorney Scott Johnson, who is said to have filed “countless” complaints of lack of handicap accessibility at California businesses. The owner estimates that $20,000-$60,000 in repairs and upgrades would have been needed to bring the dining establishment into ADA compliance. [Sierra Sun via CJAC]