disabled rights – Overlawyered

ADA and disabled rights roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 18 May 2020 10:21:24 +0000

If you think reopening a retail business with new distancing rules is a challenge, wait till you see the interplay with the ADA, as I explain in my new post at Cato;
Court dismisses class action against Wendy’s on behalf of disabled persons unable to use after-hours drive-up service as a walk-up [Davis v. Wendy’s International, a pre-pandemic case; earlier here, here, and here on ADA complaints regarding drive up windows]
“Why is subway accessibility so expensive? It’s not just about installing new elevators.” [Annie McDonough, City and State NY]
“After DOJ Letter on Website Compliance, The ADA Guessing Game Continues” [John D. McMickle, WLF] ADA filing mills hit condo and co-op boards [Frank Lovece, Habitat] Serial plaintiff files web access suit against Vermont bicycle maker [Bicycle Retailer]
Limousine service to pay $30,000 for refusing to hire deaf driver [EEOC press release]
Colorado homeowner’s association told to pay $50,000 after failing to allow woman to stay in the complex with her emotional support dog [Associated Press] “Do We Have to Allow Dogs in Our Workplace? Maybe. Maybe Not.” [Daniel Schwartz] Trucking company will pay $22,500 after asking driver to pay fee to bring service dog along in truck to help with his anxiety [EEOC press release]

Tags: disabled rights, EEOC, service animals, transit, web accessibility

ADA and disabled rights roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

New York federal court shoots down Braille gift card suit

Walter Olson — Thu, 07 May 2020 04:05:18 +0000

Hurray! Ruling in a suit against retailer Banana Republic, a New York federal judge has rejected a plaintiff’s claim that issuing gift cards without providing a version in Braille was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Among other theories, the judge ruled that a gift card was not a “place of public accommodation,” and that a law-firm client who had never asked for such a card in the first place could not complain of the lack of an individualized attempt to accommodate the request. The judge also noted as relevant the more general rule that product lines do not have to be made accessible — a bookstore, for example, is free not to deal in Braille editions of books. [Michael Steinberg and Minh Vu, Seyfarth Shaw/JD Supra]

While many other cases are still pending, the ruling could help in finally stopping a tide of abusive litigation I’ve been writing about in this space for a year or more, especially since the judge had stern words for the assembly-line mass-production of such suits for fees.

The lawsuits, which Judge Woods described as “copy-and-paste,” were riddled with mistakes such as listing the address of a Kohl’s store in Manhattan, where it has no outlets, and describing Banana Republic as a “food establishment.”

“Although it features the fruit in its name, Banana Republic does not sell bananas,” the judge wrote in his April 23 opinion.

“‘Our hope is this entire line of cases is shut down, and plaintiffs’ lawyers more generally think twice before blanketing everybody under the sun with meritless lawsuits,’ said Meredith Slawe, a partner with Akin Gump who defends companies against ADA suits.” [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline]

Tags: ADA filing mills, disabled rights

New York federal court shoots down Braille gift card suit is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

ADA and disabled rights roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 11:03:02 +0000

I’ve expanded the previous post in this space on Braille gift cards into a longer Cato post with a bit more on the politics and history of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), mentioning along the way the recent closure of a popular San Jose coffee shop [Nadia Lopez, San Jose Spotlight; another San Jose deli story] Speaking of such happenings, “He says the suit could mean the end of the restaurant. ‘We would rather just close down if we have to pay that absurd amount of money,’ he says.” [Rancho Vegano in New York City’s East Harlem neighborhood; Michael Scotto, NY1 Spectrum News]
“It’s about time! New rule could have emotional support animals bumped from planes” [Lynn Norment, Memphis Commercial Appeal; Wes Siler, Outside; David Koenig, AP]
Videos on leading pornographic websites “lack enough closed captioning, claims the class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of all deaf and hard-of-hearing people.” [Noah Goldberg, New York Daily News]
“Federal Website Access Lawsuit Numbers Increase 7 Percent in 2019, With Possible Bump from Supreme Court Denial of Cert in Domino’s” [Kristina M. Launey and Minh N. Vu, Seyfarth Shaw; Vu on related litigation trends in 2019]
“White students in New York City are 10 times as likely as Asian students to have a 504 designation that allows extra time on the specialized high school entrance exams.” [Kevin Quealy and Eliza Shapiro, New York Times; Dana Goldstein and Jugal K. Patel, New York Times (“it helps to have cash” in getting pricey psychological assessments in Southern California); Education Next (“number of high school students being given special allowances for test-taking, such as extra time, has surged in recent years” with students in affluent suburbs more likely to get them)]
“Law firms settle suit accusing them of civil RICO conspiracy to collect ADA settlements” [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal; Moore and Mission law firms, California; KGO/ABC7News on some Bay Area cases]

Tags: ADA filing mills, airlines, Bay Area, disability & schools, disabled rights, NYC, service animals, web accessibility, WO writings

ADA and disabled rights roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The seamy side of the recovery industry — and how the law enables it

Walter Olson — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 10:58:17 +0000

Lengthy exposé of abuses and money-chasing in the drug- and alcohol-recovery industry has many angles, some relating to the legal environment in which the abuses arise: “We kept hearing about people with substance-use disorder being exploited by bad actors who take advantage of well-intended federal laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Affordable Care Act, and that they keep them in an endless pattern of relapse to siphon off their insurance benefits.” [Colton Wooten, The New Yorker]

Tags: alcohol, disabled rights, illegal drugs, opioids

The seamy side of the recovery industry — and how the law enables it is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

ADA and disabled rights roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 09:58:25 +0000

Supreme Court declines review in Domino’s case, so no resolution is in sight of what and how much the ADA may require about web accessibility [Tucker Higgins, CNBC; Corbin Barthold, Law and Liberty; earlier]
NYC co-ops, condos targeted: “These lawyers have one handicapped client, and they go with this person from building to building with commercial spaces.” [Marianne Schaefer, Habitat magazine] Related: John Egan, Seyfarth Shaw;
“Airline’s Provision of Alternative Accessible Website Triggers Hefty Fine Under the Air Carrier Access Act” [Kristina M. Launey & Minh N. Vu, Seyfarth Shaw last winter]
“A handy FAQ for service animals in the workplace” [Jon Hyman]
“Thus far, these serial cases appear [more] designed to extract a quick settlement than rectify a real harm, as evidenced by the choice of plaintiff,” who couldn’t actually join credit union but sued anyway [Hollie Ferguson, Legal NewsLine] “Federal judge deals body blow to attorney at center of serial ADA lawsuits” [Casmira Harrison, Daytona Beach News-Journal; Minh Vu, Seyfarth Shaw]
Law School Admissions Test will be doing away with its analytical reasoning portion, also known as logic problems, after a blind plaintiff sued saying it “it wasn’t fair for visually impaired people because the most common way to solve the problems was to draw diagrams and pictures.” [Cheyna Roth, Michigan Radio (NPR)]

Tags: ADA filing mills, airlines, disabled rights, real estate, service animals, testing, web accessibility

ADA and disabled rights roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Disabled rights roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 23 Aug 2019 09:58:46 +0000

Housing authority in Meeker, Colorado, population 2,250, will pay nearly $1 million to settle suit over limits on emotional support animals [Niki Turner, Rio Blanco Herald-Times, Kathleen Foody, Associated Press/Colorado Sun, Stina Sieg, Colorado Public Radio]
Volume of web-accessibility suits continues to climb [Seyfarth Shaw; John Breslin, Florida Record] More on growth of this litigation [podcast with Karen Harned, NFIB, for Federalist Society Regulatory Transparency Project (earlier on pool lifts)] “DOJ Says Failure to Comply With Web Accessibility Guidelines is Not Necessarily a Violation of the ADA” [Minh Vu, Seyfarth Shaw, from last October] Second Circuit dismissal of web-access complaint in Diaz v. Apple, Inc. could be helpful to defendants [Joshua Stein and Shira Blank, National Law Review]
Report on ADA filing mills in Rochester and vicinity [Berkeley Brean, WHEC: first, second, third (colleges), fourth, fifth]
And more on New York mass filing operations: Inveterate suer of restaurants reaches Staten Island [Pamela Silvestri, SI Live] Finger Lakes wineries targeted [Jane Flasch/WHAM in February; Michael J. Fitzgerald, Finger Lakes Times] “Finkelstein has gone on a lawsuit-filing spree since getting his law license back in New York state in 2016,” and among his 50 ADA suits are some the named plaintiff says he didn’t know about [Julia Marsh, New York Post]
In EEOC-land no one can hear you honk [press release on EEOC lawsuit against limo service that declined to hire deaf driver]
“Washington Supreme Court Says Obesity Is a Disability” [Ben McDonald, and thanks for quote; earlier]

Tags: Colorado, disabled rights, EEOC, New York, New York state, obesity, pools, restaurants, service animals, web accessibility

Disabled rights roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 09:58:17 +0000

“We got nailed once because someone barehanded a bag of lettuce without a glove.” Kitchen-eye tales of NYC’s restaurant inspection regime [Saxon Baird, NY Eater]
Positive reviews for new HUD regs on housing discrimination, affordability, and supply [National Review: Roger Clegg; Salim Furth]
Sony isn’t making its robot companion dog available in Illinois because its facial recognition features fall under the state’s onerous Biometric Information Privacy Act; an earlier in-state casualty was Google’s “which museum portrait is your selfie like?” service [Megan Wollerton, CNet, earlier here and here] Is there any hope of slowing down the rush of class action suits filed under the law? [Chris Burt, Biometric Update]
Victory on a-peel: “3rd Circuit rules maker of banana costume is entitled to ‘fruits of its intellectual labor'” [ABA Journal, earlier here, etc.]
D.C. Circuit “Rips ‘Legal Artifice’ in Kasowitz Firm’s Megabillions Whistleblower Case” [Dan Packel, The American Lawyer; Cory Andrews, WLF]
Congress passes a law framed as pro-veteran, doesn’t take the time to spell out quite how it works, years later we meet the (presumably unintended) losers in the form of nonprofits that employ blind and deaf workers [Julie Havlak, Carolina Journal, quotes me]

Tags: disabled rights, housing discrimination, Illinois, NYC, privacy, restaurants, whistleblowers

August 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Do loud restaurants violate the ADA rights of persons with hearing impairment?

Walter Olson — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 10:05:21 +0000

“High-ambient noise levels pose an access barrier, just as curbs pose an access barrier for wheelchairs,” claims “a retired Los Angeles doctor [and] noise activist” quoted in the Washington Post, speaking of restaurants, though his principle might if valid apply to other sorts of entertainment venues and businesses as well. While some activists hope his view of the Americans with Disabilities Act will prevail, others doubt that courts will go along. [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal]

Tags: disabled rights, restaurants

Do loud restaurants violate the ADA rights of persons with hearing impairment? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Scooter Accidents Leading to Big Ticket Claims at Disney Parks”

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Jul 2019 09:59:31 +0000

Scooters at Disney parks “have brought on a rise of civil lawsuits filed by people complaining about being run over or drivers saying they were injured.” However, because of ADA considerations — they’re an assistive mobility device — the park cannot ban them, and even attempts at lesser restrictions, such as speed limits, would quickly run into legal constraints: “any rule would likely require the U.S. Department of Justice’s approval,” according to a disability rights attorney. [Gabrielle Russon, Insurance Journal]

Tags: amusement parks, disabled rights, Disney, safety

“Scooter Accidents Leading to Big Ticket Claims at Disney Parks” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 5 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 09:55:06 +0000

Why New York City can’t build new infrastructure at reasonable cost (“Every factor you look at is flawed the way the MTA does business, from the first step to the end.”) [Josh Barro]
“‘He’s finally getting his due.’ Serial ADA filer faces charges as store owners rejoice” [Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee on tax charges against Scott Johnson, whose doings are often chronicled in this space] Flashback: vintage Sacramento billiards parlor Jointed Cue closes after being named in one of Johnson’s 1,000+ accessibility suits [Kellen Browning, Sacramento Bee last year]
“Four-Year Court Battle Between Deaf Advocates and Harvard Over Closed Captioning of Videos Proceeds to Discovery With Some Limitations” [Kristina M. Launey & Minh N. Vu, Seyfarth Shaw; earlier on takedown of Berkeley online courses]
More on copyright battle between state of Georgia and Carl Malamud over whether he can publish online the laws of Georgia with annotations commissioned and approved by the state under agreement with private publishers [Adam Liptak, New York Times; earlier]
Reviewing the harms of rent control: a view from Seattle [Kevin Schofield, SCC Insight]
California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) “imposes liability on cities that elect their representatives through an at-large system and have racially polarized voting.” Generous attorneys’ fee provisions have encouraged assembly-line filing of complaints [Federalist Society forum with J. Michael Connolly; Mark Plummer, LAist; Carolyn Schuk, Silicon Valley Voice (Sunnyvale); Robert Haugh, Santa Clara News Online]

Tags: California, disabled rights, election law, Harvard, landlord tenant law, NYC, Seattle, transit

June 5 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system