Before the ADA: high school drop out (or push out as disabled people call it).

After the ADA: lawyer and all around contributor to society.

No law is perfect, no law can’t be tweaked a little and even fully tweaked every law will be subject to abuse. But if you look at its whole effect it is a net positive good for our society.

To butcher a phrase from Reagan, if you give a paraplegic man a fish, he will eat for a day; but if you make the docks wheelchair accessible, he’ll eat forever.

i will add that the lawsuits you hear about tend to be disproportionately unmeritorious. The slam dunk situations–the new construction with no wheelchair ramps at all, for instance–those aren’t even litigated. to the degree they even occur these days, they are settled once a lawyer explains to the client just how wrong they are. So typically the only cases litigated are the ones that prompt a fight. Now some prompt fights because the prejudice is uniquely entrenched (LD rights come to mind), but of course the truly ridiculous cases (like Chipolte above) are also more likely to be litigated, because they are ridiculous.

Seems to me there should be an amendment to the ADA: “if a business or other public accomodation is legally following a law, rule, or regulation–or previous court rulings, absent such–which comes into conflict with the ADA, the ADA does NOT apply at all, and NO suits can be brought under the ADA if such conflict exists. This would apply to laws such as, but not limited to, health and safety laws, whether local, state and/or federal. Any such ADA lawsuit brought would be AUTOMATICALLY dismissed, with Rule 11 sanctions against the plaintiffs counsel and full restitution for legal costs assessed against the plaintiff(s) and their counsel(s) paid to defendant(s) and counsel for defendant(s).”

To truly comply with ADA and to accommodate all conceivable handicaps, all facilities need to be available in an infinity variety of shapes and sizes.