Comments on: Ninth Circuit defends ADA filing mill, resuscitates Molski suit

By: Joe Bingham

Joe Bingham — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 00:42:16 +0000

I had the pleasure of bringing this case up in my I/O psychology class Monday night. My teacher is quite the ADA fan (tho’ I can’t quite tell if he’s playing devil’s advocate…). His thinking seems to run along the lines of “well, if it only asks for a reasonable accomodation, it must be a reasonable law.” Hm.

By: Ted

Ted — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 12:33:18 +0000

Well, the court says the restaurant admitted they didn’t. As I said in the post, we don’t know what the full testimony was, so we don’t know whether there was other testimony that could have supported the jury’s verdict; the court’s failure to acknowledge that a jury could rationally choose to disbelieve Molski and the court’s claim that the cross-examination of Molski was “irrelevant” does not engender confidence that they are not being disingenuous with respect to the restaurant official’s testimony. But, as I noted in the post, it’s within the realm of possibility.

By: David Schwartz

David Schwartz — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 02:40:19 +0000

“But the jury could have chosen to disbelieve Molski’s testimony ..”

The ruling does not rely on Molski’s testimony but on the testimony of the defendants. Even if the jury disbelieved every word Molski said, their finding still could not be supported by the evidence.

Had the jury disbelieved Molski, they still would have had to find that the restaurant in fact did not make accommodations because they *admitted* they didn’t.

Don’t blame the court for enforcing bad laws.