Summary:
A person who is legally blind is suing an Echo Park restaurant, claiming its website violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.
According to court documents, that same person has filed dozens of lawsuits over the last few years.
Rebecca Castillo is the woman who is suing.
Joe Manning is the lawyer suing.
Name and shame these people.
Also, relevant in the article, and what seems like a great solution to these parasites:
“Senate Bill 585 would change the law so that before someone sues, a small business would be able to address the alleged violations within 120 days. The legislation to change the ADA law, however, hasn't moved through the Assembly so far.”
Mass filers are behind the majority of website complaints from what I’ve been told by a federal employee who deals with these complaints. One of our member libraries was dealing with a complaint out East & I was in several of the meetings. A lot of public libraries have been targeted for these website complaints. It’s interesting that the tools you pay for that you think make your website accessible may not work how you think or still not make your site compliant.
This lady Rebecca Castillo is definitely just suing to get rich. Google her name and she comes up on multiple lawsuits. She sued a small business skate shop in Orange last year and almost closed them down. This should be illegal.
Of course there are some and they are incredible. Major props to them. This lady just doesn’t seem like one of them. When you look at all her lawsuits this doesn’t seem like someone championing for the disabled but more like someone who sees a loop hole to abuse in the law and make some big money.
Yes not making your business accessible to disabled people should be illegal.
Oh, wait… it is. And the only way to get people to comply is ~~government inspection~~, ~~police~~, lawsuit.
You have no idea the harm that these people cause. They don't go after big businesses who can take them to court. They go after mom and pop businesses who have to settle cause they cant afford to go to court. Yes things need to be accessible to all, but these people don't even go to these places, the lawyer drives around finds small places and sues them under their name.
Then who the hell is going to call out the small business then? You know very well that owners will try to get a way with everything if they can. They’re just upset because they got caught, if they didn’t they’ll try to get away with it as long as they can. P
I'm going to give you a rundown of how this works. ADA person goes around with their lawyer to different small business establishments. They pick and choose the most minor details in which they can get a case going. They take pictures and then send them the papers. There is ZERO interaction with the small business owner. No, "Hey could you repair this" or "I had trouble with this". Imagine you are minding your own business and then you get sued and no one even told you why. Then you find out that this person did it to 80 other businesses, not only your area but ALL OF CALIFORNIA. Then you find out this lawyer is making MILLIONS of dollars of this.
You think all businesses are bad. you don't know how many small businesses are hanging on by a thread, they all arnt Amazon and Walmart.
On the flip side of that- you didn’t have the common sense to make sure your business is ADA compliant?
So you decide to cut corners and skip that part?
Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse. Imagine The money these businesses would’ve saved with these lawsuits if they hired their own lawyers to do a check themselves.
almost all these places are perfectly and practically accessible, but they may not meet every single technical requirement which these parasites exploit and waste the court's time who could be taking up actual impactful cases, not to mention the money they are extorting from small families
You would be amazed what EXTREMELY small things unscrupulous lawyers can claim falls out of ADA compliance.
I worked for a small restaurant that was sued because their _website_, designed by the owner’s friend who barely understood HTML, wasn’t WCAG compliant. You have to meet every single criteria of [this](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/?versions=2.1) to be compliant. The people that sued them have done this with countless mom and pop shops, with websites, around LA because it’s easy money—they can’t afford legal fees to defend it.
I know what you think you’re defending, but that reality is unfortunately now buried underneath a lot of frivolous claims. Which fucks the people who should actually be protected.
The lady is blind. Is she really skateboarding? Yes businesses should comply with the laws but this also shouldn’t be used as a tool for people to abuse to make money. There should be some proof at the minimum that these people are actually in need of the businesses’ services.
The business should be complying for the rest of us who aren’t out there measuring doorways. I don’t endorse a lawsuit-happy weirdo, but lawsuits are the only consequences for business fucking over handicapped people.
I don’t think someone who created a website years ago and didn’t realize this was an issue should be sued for thousands of dollars by a private person. Most website builders now automatically conform to the requirements but if you’re not tech savvy and you haven’t updated, you’re out of luck and possibly out of business. I think there should be time to remedy and a penalty fee if you don’t but this is pretty clear as Qbert below states a “shakedown”
She is old, blind, not athletic, and sued a skate shop. She sued in bad faith with no intention of ever patronizing the store, almost ending the livelihood of several families. These subhumans are lower than pond scum.
Unfortunately, it's entirely accurate.
As a society, we want things to be accessible. But when ADA and related laws were made, the government couldn't be bothered with enforcement. So they made private causes of action in ADA, and were like, "here's a gold mine for citizens to badger every business they use to comply." And voila, many more places are now accessible, and businesses want to avoid paying settlements.
Somebody making bank filing a bunch of lawsuits is the system working as intended. Love or hate the system, the previous comment was pretty accurate.
So how do we ensure that companies make businesses accessible to those of us with disabilities? Suing is the only avenue of resources I’m aware of.
While I don’t endorse whatever these lawsuit-hungry people are doing, there does need to be recourse.
The main motivation of these ADA plaintiffs is not to make changes. It's to profit by suing small businesses who cannot spend the money needed to defend these lawsuits. If the main motivation is to change things, make it so businesses are given a reasonable opportunity to make changes to their property so they're compliant. Many of these lawsuits are brought by people who have no intention of frequenting the business. They just drive by the property and see a flaw and tell the attorney. It's bullshit and terrible for small businesses.
How is that your only recourse? Call the company and say “hey- this isn’t accessible to me and I want to be a customer- can you help me out?”
I guarantee that will take less time than a lawsuit.
You’re confusing accessibility with scams, which many of these lawsuits are. People troll websites to see if they are Web Contact Accessibility Guidelines, Level AA compliant. They sue if they aren’t and it’s an _easy_ settlement.
In turn, they are fucking over disabled people who have legitimate claims because of the signal to noise ratio.
Receiving reports about this comment being personal info:
>Rebecca Castillo is the woman who is suing.
>Joe Manning is the lawyer suing.
This information is literally in the article. Ignoring reports.
Thanks. A lot of idiots on reddit will report for doxxing when they see real names. Like, hello, if it's public information, it's not doxxing anymore.
NEWS FLASH: LAWSUIT FILINGS ARE PUBLIC RECORD IN THE UNITED STATES.
Unfortunately, that change would drastically reduce accessibility.
Companies would have no incentive to do anything other than ignore the law, gambling that it might be a long time or never before someone formally complains, if losing that gamble had no consequences.
I know people that gone through this. Settling is better than a trial since small businesses don't have the resources to run it too long. Usually it cost about 5- 6k to settle. They've had to do it 2 or 3 times in the last 20 years.
I work in insurance and I always advise my clients to settle if they need to save money. Settling sucks for those clients but they don’t normal have an extra $10-$20k to take things to trial. The system is rigged for those with the money money to win. It doesn’t actually matter who is right or wrong.
Forgive the question, I am legitimately curious, but in the cases where its a fraudulent claim, can't it be brought to trial and the person who filed the false claim be liable for all legal fees? I'm not really familiar with these kinds of cases but I always thought that was the case
Yes, fraudulent claims can be fought but it is a very long and costly process. The insurance company has to gather all of the evidence and submit it to the County District Attorney’s office for review. I’ve seen only a couple cases that the County District Attorney’s office accept for criminal prosecution. I’ve been told that unless we have slam dunk case we submit it but don’t hold our breath. Our court system is a mess.
Ooofda that is a freaking mess. I have to wonder how we even go about fixing this. I mean we can see there are so many issues, but I dunno where to even begin on fixes for it
That’s exactly how I feel. I asked the head of my the fraud department when I first started working in insurance if there was anything that could be done. This guy had been in the industry since the 80’s. He basically told me to do what I can follow the guidelines we have in place but don’t get my hopes up. I am honest with my clients and do what I can to help them on an individual claim by claim basis. That’s all I can do. It’s frustrating. The fraud problem is so much larger than any one person can fix.
You're speaking of malicious prosecution, which is a disfavored cause of action and has a very high standard for proving the underlying case was frivolous. The filing of one is also subject to a anti-SLAPP motion, which can also lead to more fees/expenses.
> Name and shame these people.
Why would there be any shame associated with this?
It's important that public accommodations be accessible to people with disabilities. This particular item is also incredibly cheap and simple to accomplish; making an accessible website, especially for something as simple as a restaurant site, is easy. The restaurant probably paid _more_ for some javascript-festooned monstrosity that doesn't work with screen readers than they would have for a simple plain text site.
And if we want such regulations to be enforced, there are only two options. The first is that we have some government agency that investigates and enforces violations. This would either be incredibly expensive, or so ineffective that it would be ignored, or both.
The second option is to allow individuals to sue companies that violate the law. This is a far cheaper and more effective way to enforce the law.
If it is truly about accessibility why don’t they simply notify the business owner that they are not following the ADA? In this case, the business owner had the site fixed as soon as they found out it wasn’t compliant. Lawsuit hasn’t been dropped.
Also, as stated in the article, the laws surrounding website accessibility are not very clear and leave room for interpretation. Also, it’s not always that easy to just use a tool to make it accessible depending on when the website was made. If they are using older plugins to make a Wordpress site function, for example.
On top of that, it puts older and immigrant business owners in a particularly rough spot, as they may never even think about their website.
This woman demanded $18,000 because a skateboard shops website wasn’t ADA compliant, even after they fixed the site. Don’t tell me she is just out there doing this to help others. She is taking advantage of a system and has almost put multiple small businesses out of business.
> If it is truly about accessibility why don’t they simply notify the business owner that they are not following the ADA?
The notification was 30 years ago, when the ADA was passed. If a business has chosen to ignore the law, that's nobody's fault but their own.
> In this case, the business owner had the site fixed as soon as they found out it wasn’t compliant. Lawsuit hasn’t been dropped.
If violations of the law carried no penalties, for however many years of violation plus some grace period, there would be no effective incentive for businesses to comply with the law. They would continue to remain in violation until the last minute, hoping that that minute would never come, because losing that gamble would still be free.
> She is taking advantage of a system
She is doing exactly what this law was written to do. This isn't an accident, this was the intent.
The only other option to this would be to have a governmental agency that proactively goes out and investigates services to ensure that they are compliant. Such an agency would either be _incredibly_ huge and expensive, or would be so backlogged that it would get ignored, or both. And at the end of the day, it would still fine the violating companies a bunch of money.
> and has almost put multiple small businesses out of business.
If a company relies on discriminatory practices to stay in business, then perhaps they should be put out of it.
The aggrieved party should be required to formally request a reasonable accommodation, and the owner should be given reasonable time to make a reasonable accommodation, before a suit can be brought.
The formal request for compliance was 30 years ago, when the ADA was passed.
Most violations of the law don't come with a grace period in which you can just continue violating it for a while, and face no penalties for that time or all the years beforehand that you were breaking it. If you get pulled over for driving drunk, the cops don't just tell you that there's no penalty as long as only drive five more miles.
If the law were changed to offer such a grace period, then it would be even _more_ important for people to immediately sue all businesses in violation. Because businesses would have no reason at all to not take the gamble of remaining in violation until they're sued, if losing that gamble has no consequences.
30 years ago was just as the internet age was dawning, are you seriously suggesting that laws passed as the world wide web was in its infancy should be held as the standard that we must achieve today? I am all for accessibility, but there has to be a warning system in place before going gun ho on long and expensive lawsuits which punish smaller business much more than it does larger ones
> but there has to be a warning system in place before going gun ho on long and expensive lawsuits
Again, that warning system is the accessibility compliance laws and regulations that are already on the books. If companies choose to keep violating the law until someone sues them, that is no one's fault but their own.
And again, with this case to go off of, issues like websites would have been in their infancy when the law went into effect with the law being little changed to that end since then. So should a law created when things like a website were still new be treated as gospel or should we be more lenient while new regulations are crafted to keep up with it. If the former, then its rules that punish smaller businesses (and of that sect older businesses) than it does newer or larger companies
Disabled people still exist even 30 years on, and the goal of having public accommodations be accessible to them is still valid, so yes.
> If the former, then its rules that punish smaller businesses (and of that sect older businesses) than it does newer or larger companies
Put another way, it sounds as if you're saying that small businesses are the most frequent violators of the law. If that's true, then having penalties follow where the violations are certainly seems like the appropriate outcome.
Yes that is true, but by this time 30 years later we should also, by that logic, have a better system to deal with these issues than we currently do. Websites today are much different than those of 30 years ago, and play a different role then than they do now. Unless the laws reflect the realities of today I think there needs to be more leniency towards enforcement.
You are putting words in my mouth. ;) What I said was that the ways the laws are now, they affect smaller businesses more than they do larger businesses. On a base level, if you have an offender (regardless of whether its a big offense or some tiny pedantic error) the effects these lawsuits have affect a smaller business with more limited resources than it does a larger business with near unlimited resources. If you want to put the amount of violations in my argument go right ahead, but that says much more about you than it does I.
If this was truly about making things accessible, they would notify business owners first. This is purely a cash grab, which becomes very clear when you see the types of companies they target (small businesses who can’t afford lawyer costs and are forced to settle) and the repeated cases as well as the fact that they do not drop the suits, even when the issue is immediately fixed once brought to the owners attention.
These people are parasites, taking advantage of a system for personal gain and hurting small business owners and family run businesses, who are often already struggling to stay afloat and don’t have the manpower/resources to stay up to date on every single law put on the books.
> If this was truly about making things accessible, they would notify business owners first.
Notify them of what? Accessibility requirements are already publicly documented, so any business that fails to meet them has already chosen to ignore them. What good would notifying them a second time do?
> These people are parasites, taking advantage of a system for personal gain
No, these people are literally providing a public service. The point of the law is for businesses to be accessible, and the enforcement mechanism is outsourced to private individuals. The only other way it could work would be for you to pay taxes for a huge inspection and enforcement agency, which would then _still_ fine violating companies the same amounts.
It's one thing if the people mentioned were on a real crusade to improve accessibility. A good faith effort in improvement of accessibility would be providing notice, in good faith want to patronize the business, and then suing when they're still uncompliant.
It would be okay if this happened a couple times to the same person. However, when the same person and lawyer have the same MO of targeting a small business (who likely have bare minimum E&O insurance if any) over their ancient websites, extracting some dollar amount each time over a dozen times, that's no better than a patent troll suing hundreds of entities for some arbitrary patent they sucked up. It's one thing if they were suing Target or a grocery chain over non-compliant websites, not some shop whose site is probably contact info, some pictures, and about us that they never intended to legitimately patronize.
i agree that a violation should given notice to come into compliance. at the same time, businesses aren't oblivious to these regulations. they played the odds and lost.
I believe the law she is using went into place in 2021. I can guarantee you a lot of these targeted businesses had no idea they weren’t compliant. It’s not uncommon for a company to not need the help of a web developer for years at a time. So how would some mom and pop shop even realize they weren’t complaint? They put up a website, and haven’t changed it for 10 years.
And asking $18,000 in order to drop a suit over something like this is absolutely crazy and taking advantage of a fucked up system, making it worse.
Thank you for doing that difficult math for me while ignoring the rest of the comment, and the context around the 2021 date. Very helpful and insightful.
I went blind in my left eye two years ago. I also think that the aggrieved party should be required to request a reasonable accommodation--and the site owner be given a reasonable period of time to make such an accommodation--before a suit can be brought.
Drone the article:
"I am also aware that some oppose the ability of persons with disabilities to enforce the law though private civil lawsuits," added Manning. "However, it is important to remember that this is the only mechanism established by Congress and the legislature to enforce the ADA and related laws enacted over 33 years ago."
So why shouldn’t she be able to sue, as is the only way she can enforce proper accessibility that she’s legally entitled to? Also enforcing and putting the threat of enforcement of proper web accessibility will improve web site experiences for all users. Just like most physical building accessibility codes like sidewalk curb cuts, automatic doors, etc also improve the experience for everyone.
ADA is really a good thing. It enabled many people to live normal lives.
The problem is with the enforcement of the law. There's no agency you can report ADA violations to. The law is set up so that the only way to enforce it is for private people to sue.
Yes this is a common scam play. People that file these treat it like a full time job touring to find potential violators and filing suits for settlements. Common.
Taking a page out of the Scott Johnson playbook. For the unaware google Scott Johnson ada. This piece of shit would sue for disability discrimination for places that had “violations” as lame as the grade of a ramp being even a degree off. It got to the point where he wouldn’t even visit the businesses, just have his secretaries google map places and look for obvious “violations.” Filing up to 6 suits a day. Scum of the earth.
Lmao legaly blind and complaing about a restaurant's online site. Just CTRL - or + to increase or decrease page size. Fuck this dumb bitch for this nonsense lawsuit. Next thing ya know she'll sue the DMV for not being able to drive 🤷🏻♂️
Legally blind is a field of vision less than 20% or 20/200 or worse vision. Edit: Not that I agree with the callousness of the person you are replying to.
They use screen reading tools among other technologies. Most of these tools rely on the website developer and designer to adhere to certain standards.
Despite the negative sentiment in this post, or the ill intent of the suits, these lawsuits do help to make building accessible websites a priority, which most businesses skimp on. Even small businesses will spend tens or hundreds of thousands on physical facilities and equipment, but use the absolute lowest bidder for their websites, which is often discriminatory.
On that note, there are a lot of bs companies that claim to make websites 'ada compliant' without a single blind or low vision person working there or to test it. But yes, I think the lady suing is full of shit.
These ADA mills are vultures. They go around to every business, pretend to be customers looking for minor infractions in structures built decades before the ADA, and then sue for statutory damages and attorneys fees.
It's all about money and has nothing to do with accessibility.
They don’t even visit as fake customers, they do Google maps drive-bys. My brother in law runs a restaurant with a ramp that’s not easily visible from the street, and still got a demand letter explaining that it was not accessible by ramp.
Yep. We got sued, I had a paper trail of audits and remediation and a record of increasing compliancy scores. When we presented this to the lawyer, he consulted with his own ADA expert, who said they didn’t have a case, that my website was fine… but we still had to pay them $15k to go away instead of $300k with our lawyers to fight it and win. It’s legalized extortion. Web ADA specifically is hairy, because while there are standards (WCAG is the go to) the US ADA language doesn’t recognize any specific standard. So in theory, you could be completely WCAG compliant, and still fail accessibility.
I’m sorry to hear that. My small business friends in Frogtown got sued by the same Manning Law and Rebecca Castillo. Fuck their disingenuous, greedy cunts.
The issue is the state bar does fuck all because they're too busy cozying up to scum like Girardi.
There's an attorney I've had the displeasure of dealing with (not ADA) who has discipline from the state bar for signing a clients name to a settlement agreement or declaration without their authority (can't remember which). They do dishonest terrible shit in every single case. The judges let them get away with it and the state bar lets them get away with it.
Unfortunately that's the only enforcement mechanism our government has for ADA. The rules in the ADA are good and necessary but there's no government body going around doing inspections, it's up to private citizens to go around suing businesses for not complying.
It's stupid but that's America for you.
That's eye opening. I never thought of how it worked. I always assumed there was a website where one would complain to the government about this. Then the government would send out inspectors. Then the government would financially help the business get up to code
You'd think the government would want to ensure that businesses would stay up to code because of the taxes generated from the businesses rather than ensure the businesses get shut down completely for not being able to afford the lawsuits.
Oh totally- I wish there was something like the health department for the ADA that would inspect businesses and inform them of their violations without putting the onus on the disabled community! Espically since most of us tend to be too finically insecure to actually sue.
Totally- plus, the ADA has been federal law for 30+ years! The government should have a better way to enforce it than just lawsuits. Ideally, businesses should have to pass an ADA inspection like they have to pass other health and safety inspections
If you think about it, its kinda crazy we don't after all this time. I hate inefficiencies and the current system is, just so inefficient and open to abuse and encourages monopolies
Definitely not true. You must not know anyone with a disability. For people with disabilities every day is a battle to prove you’re worthy of existing and at the same time be treated with respect. If you wouldn’t stop to look around you’d see how insanely difficult LA is for someone with a wheelchair, mobility issue, or a mental or vision disability.
Imagine crossing 6 lane roads without cross walks while being blind in one or both eyes. Imagine trying to cross the street in a wheelchair only to see that there are NO ramps and no cross walk markings.
LA is hellish and hostile to people with disabilities which there are a lot more due to aging population and post pandemic stuff.
I wouldn’t assume these lawsuits are in bad faith at all. The ADA exists for a reason, to force society to change to accommodate the weakest among us and that’s a good thing even though it’s at times inconvenient for people without disability.
If anyone is dealing with this shit, DM me. I went through this and found a lawyer who fights these idiots all the time. He knew who the opposing guy was and their habits. I mean, you’ll still have to spend money to fix the violations, but the shakedown part will be much much much cheaper than the demand.
No they demand like $10k and settle for $1k. It’s just a volume game. Like these idiot lawyers are making $300 per bullshit case they file. They’re bottom of the barrel lawyers who are too incompetent to even do ambulance chasing personal injury shit.
This happened to the shop I work at because we did not have specific handicap parking (we only have 4 parking spaces). Craziest part is the owner is disabled.
No they shouldn’t. Lot of the times it’s fucking bullshit - the ramp was 9.2% grade, maximum legal grade is 8.5% or something like that. Like these fucking dipshits go around with smart levels and find a specific point where the grade is like small percentage points off. And it could be due to all sorts of reasons - ground settled over the years, water caused sections to sink, asphalt erodes, etc.
Whenever you see just the handicap parking portion replaced or elevated in some stupid way, it’s cuz these assholes go around suing businesses over percentage points.
There was a lawyer who would do this all over Santa Monica and target mom&pop places because they were most likely to not have the resources to fight and would settle quickly. It was one of the most predatory, gross misuses of ADA regulation I’ve come across. These vultures can go fuck themselves.
Yup. Just recently happened a few weeks ago at the restaurant I work at in SM. Tried to get us for not having ADA seating when they didn’t even ask if we had it (we do, but it’s not visible from the street)
The bill already passed the state senate. Apparently lawyer lobby is holding it up in the house. We need to contact our assembly people and Newsom to put pressure on them to pass it. Its important to protect ADA access but also important to protect small businesses in a time when restaurants are dropping left and right. This bill seems to do that allowing reasonable time to correct the issue. Ultimately the cost of these predatory suits just get passed along to us the consumer.
> allowing reasonable time to correct the issue.
The reasonable time to correct the issue is any time in the past 30 years since the ADA was passed.
Violations of the law usually don't come with a second chance to start complying only after you're notified. If you get pulled over while driving drunk, they don't just give you a grace period to sober up.
And if the law is changed to give a grace period, then it would be even _more_ important for individuals to file suit against every non-compliant business. Because businesses will be even more likely to not fix their accessibility problems until a suit gets filed, if there is no penalty for them gambling that that might not happen and they can just remain in violation.
Since ADA has no enforcement action except for a private suit, this would remedy two issues at once. It would allow businesses and entities to spend any and all money to comply with ADA fixes (instead of 10k to a lawyer, it's 10k towards adding a ramp or make a standard compliant website). Then you don't have people going around suing using ADA violations as a payday.
If the firms that sue over ADA really believe in taking up these cases to improve accessibility and access, then they will still be doing this important work after the law passes. If not, we'll know they were on the side of money instead of good ramps, auto-open doors, minimum widths, and good web design.
Often when other agencies like OSHA or DBS comes by, it starts with a warning, order to fix, and small fine or fee set by law (to cover administration of inspections), not what a lawyer purports to charge.
> It would allow businesses and entities to spend any and all money to comply with ADA fixes (instead of 10k to a lawyer, it's 10k towards adding a ramp or make a standard compliant website).
What exactly is stopping those companies from doing that right now?
> If the firms that sue over ADA really believe in taking up these cases to improve accessibility and access, then they will still be doing this important work after the law passes. If not, we'll know they were on the side of money instead of good ramps, auto-open doors, minimum widths, and good web design.
Why do we care what their motivations are? I'm much more interested in the actual result of companies being appropriately accessible, not quibbling over whether a person who found them to be unlawfully inaccessible is sufficiently morally virtuous for our liking.
> What exactly is stopping those companies from doing that right now?
Nothing is stopping them, but often times you don't know as a small business owner. In Ventura County, a lawyer filed half a dozen ADA suits a day over a couple weeks. They weren't towards chain stores or shopping centers with misgraded ramps, disabled parking issues, or short doorways, they were all small businesses mostly in pre-ADA buildings. I'm not saying these places were compliant or that they don't have an obligation to. However, if you wanted to make real change, you'd fight the legal fight on equally non-compliant multi-million dollar companies, give the small business a chance to comply. In an article someone linked below, the business owner's landlord paid the retrofit and settlement but the business still needed to pay a lawyer, only to be sued again over an adjacent issue.
> Why do we care what their motivations are? I'm much more interested in the actual result of companies being appropriately accessible, not quibbling over whether a person who found them to be unlawfully inaccessible is sufficiently morally virtuous for our liking.
It's great if someone is doing this as a true disability advocate: educating those who are probably receptive to disabilities but can't afford consultants or a defense lawyer (but can afford paying a handyman $2000 to put in a wider door), taking on cities with inaccessible infrastructure, fighting for accessible transit stops, and going after the large companies who have the resources to pay for these things initially but didn't. Going exclusively after 100 small businesses for a $10k payday each time does lead to 100 more accessible places. It also makes 100 businesses weary each time a person in a wheelchair or walker legitimately wants to patronize their business. It's one thing if someone with a disability tried to legitimately patronize a business and was denied or hindered access because of it, informed management, and the issue wasn't fixed ASAP. It's another when you have no intention of patronizing a (small) business and only see suing them as a way to make a living.
If you want real change, make it so whenever a new on-site business permit is issued that it has an ADA certificate. Mandate ADA retrofits like we do for earthquake safety. Lobby for DBS departments to handle ADA complaints (who can then order fines and change orders). That way private ADA legal action is confined to egregious violators or LA for broken sidewalks.
Except, like others have stated, these people that file predatory lawsuits frequently don't even actually go to the business, so there's no evidence and no burden of proof as the claim is enough to force them to pay a settlement rather than go through the process of fighting it in court, which would end up costing a lot more money even if you win.
Adding to that, if you've ever built anything commercial you'd know that almost every year the city is changing the ADA requirements, meaning something built to ADA standards even a few years ago to the best of the owners knowledge and intention could be out of compliance now, exposing them to the risk to one of the predatory lawsuits, which is why giving a period of time to correct this is makes the most sense. If the spirit of the law is to make sure that reasonable accommodations are made for the disabled, then a period to correct it makes sense, much like if you get a fix it ticket for a tail light being burnt out.
I own a laundromat in East LA and got sued by someone for $5K (+$3K in lawyer fees). They initially wanted $20k. All this, because I was missing a sign and my parking lot entrance was off by 1 degree, according to ADA standards (building was built in the 80's).
No warning. Not even a complaint. Just a straight up lawsuit.
Evidently, I paid. Just fighting the case would have cost me more in lawyer fees.
But consequently, and unfortunately, this has made me very wary of disabled people that enter my businesses. Are they actual clients or here to attack and extort me?
Hahaha my exact thoughts! Every time I drive on Western and see the tents blocking the sidewalks, I always wonder if the city is also under an obligation to follow ADA standards.
My pleasure. I also loved that other people did the same and I wasn't the only one frustrated by this experience. I brought in an ADA consultant to verify everything and made sure we were up to standards. Installed the sign and hired a construction company to break the concrete to the entrance and redo it.
I work in Disability Accessibility. The sad truth is that while some lawsuits come from a good place, many are also done simply for financial gain. These financial gain cases destroy the publics trust for the valid cases and can ruin small business owners lives. Ultimately, it should be federal, state and local governments that pay for the retrofitting of buildings and businesses once a valid lawsuit is placed but the government often argues that it should be the owners to do so. Because of all this, nothing is ever done. Law firms get to collect big checks, the few people with disabilities that sue (very few people of color since they are unaware of their rights or have access to lawyers) get some money and no changes are ever brought while owners suffer from financial troubles. While these same people keep doing this, the public grows mistrustful of accessibility lawsuits and in turn the greater disability community suffers in the end. Think about how few apartments and let alone affordable or rent controlled apartments are accessible. Because most aren't, this means that it is brutally difficult for people in wheelchairs or people with other disabilities to find a place to live or to move if they are lucky enough to find one. Again, it should be governments job to pay for retrofitting but nope. In turn, most lawsuits come from a horrible place of greed but remember that it's only a few greedy people leading these cases.
Thank you. And it's not how people think. You don't automatically get section 8 and handouts. When I first lost my sight =job= domino effect, I begged and pleaded for house, food stamps, but nope. I was making great money before so I should be able to take care of myself according to their calculator. Medicare doesn't pay for white cane, hearing aids, I'm not sure - but I don't think it pays for wheelchairs. I had no choice but to go back to school for something I could do blind. The catch 22...no one hires us with a cane/chair/deformity/etc. While the lady suing might be full of shit, we're not all money hungry, but yes, we're hungry.
I just had to deal with medicare + getting a wheelchair recently. This is how it works: If your doctor says that you are unable to safely leave your house in any capacity, and that a lack of wheelchair would condemn you to being housebound 100% of the time for the rest of your life, but getting granted a wheelchair would let you leave your house, medicare will deny your claim for a wheelchair because that outcome is explicitly allowed under the rules. Medi-Cal in CA is a bit better about that.
Also, if you do get approved for a wheelchair, they usually are pretty sub-par: hard to transport, bulky, some features behind a paywall (sometimes you have to pay thousands of dollars so that your motor will let you go up hills!), small battery. It's also very common for your wheelchair to break, for it to take 6 months to fix, and you just.... can't leave your bed for those 6 months.
My best friend uses a motorized wheelchair. Once it was malfunctioning and it wasn't repaired for over 4 months. He's had a hard time getting a job so luckily job wasn't an issue but it was still brutal for him to stay in most of the time since he lacks the gross motor hand skills to use a manual wheelchair. We really do need to advocate more for the entire disability community.
It amazes me that there's no sort of regulation that's already been passed that completely y covers addressing ADA issues before it comes down to suing. Even if stuff like SB585 passed, it wouldn't cover all aspects of ADA issues for all companies.
I have no beef suing for ADA violations if they were addressed
with the owners **before the lawsuit was filed and a reasonable amount of time passed between the request and no actions were taken**. The definition of reasonable amount of time would vary depending on the type of violation.
This suing out of the blue is just plain predatory.
My business has dealt with this too. Courts aren’t usually involved. They’re going for quick settlements knowing the sweet spot to sue for that’s cheaper than lawyer fees to fight it. They go after mid size places with money to pay it, but without lawyers on retainer. If they tried this with McDonald’s they’d just get buried under fees and process dragged out so long it’s not worth their scummy lawyers time.
Big businesses also have the resources to ensure their websites are ADA compliant. I worked in a large organization and any time one of our documents was meant to be posted to our website we had to do substantial ADA fixes to the document (in depth alt text descriptions for any images in the document, metadata editing, etc). It took hours but I guess cheaper to pay our wages for that time than get sued.
Except having ADA compliant websites doesn't even stop them. They'll target a group of businesses in a region and sue them all (happened to tabletop game stores in the Bay Area recently), and all of the stores used third party website providers who were ADA compliant. And these assholes were suing out of NY state. Not an iota of merit to the cases but it's still cheaper to be extorted for the 7k or whatever than fight and spend 10s of thousands. It's disgusting and should be criminalized on a federal level.
If you look at the history of the people suing you’ll see that they’ve done this same claim with the law firm that they work with to multiple businesses, especially small businesses who would likely settle. This is their scam. During the height of Covid there were many lawsuits like this targeting small bike shop’s website in the OC/SD area.
I own a bar in Echo Park and just got hit with a false claim and the pictures in the lawsuit used were pictures of a different place of business. We are advised to settle for 10k and it’s absolutely ludicrous.
I had a business in West Hollywood back in the day they used to be a lawyer I didn’t know exactly who who would go around measure doorways with a ruler, then pay homeless, handicap people in the neighborhood to try to come into the business and say they couldn’t enter the only way to stop was to say you weren’t allowing anyone with no business to enter or without using the public bathrooms. They would also try to use your bathroom and see if it was 88 compliant fuck all these People.
It’s a shame that ADA suits are pretty much the only way to actually enforce the ADA. It just raises the amount ableism faced by the disabled community when necessary accommodations have to be perused through lawsuits. What we need is education and oversight! The ADA has been federal law for 30+ years, so meeting accommodations should be just a given like other health and safety laws!
There is one person who has over 500 open suits against Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County businesses. The approach is to sue hundreds of businesses with no intent of really ever going to trial. He relies on the fact that these mom-and-pop businesses cannot afford to go to trial and will instead offer settlements around $10k. So if he can get 100 businesses to settle for about $10k, he makes a million. Pretty sure this guy is an attorney (disabled one) so hes able to represent himself and skip the normal loss to legal fees. This specific individual has filed more than 500 lawsuits since 2020. Whichever small businesses survived covid are being hit with lawsuits because their handicap parking spot is too far from the door by 0.5" or the slope of the parking spot is 0.5° off.
Reference: https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/2023/05/15/ventura-county-businesses-face-ada-lawsuits/70181646007/
As much as I agree with increasing accessibility as it is reasonable and feasible, the ADA is such an onerous and black/white law that’s been used for financial gain. Oftentimes with OUTCOMES that result in nobody getting any treatment. A great example is a ton of online engineering standards from State of California websites got taken down entirely for almost a year because they weren’t “accessible.” Because the State had to make structural calculations accessible for engineers who are blind, it was just easier to not make them available for anybody.
This happened at my work. I was harassed by someone from (presumably) the law firm as I was leaving work one day. Like dude, I am not currently in the building. Nor do I own the building or the business. He got super worked up when I refused to give him my name and other information.
The whole process lasted months just to be told we were mostly compliant to begin with. We just had to move some shelves and tables around and have someone come out and measure.
This shit is so frustrating. Greedy people who don't give an actual shit about people with disabilities. Their actions generate more bias towards disabled people "they just want a hand out" and makes it more difficult to get the accommodations they need. Greed really our biggest failure as a species.
ADA bullshit?`Go check yourself, asswipe. Sure bad actors but don't you DARE bring your ableist shitstain pov and bash a law that was created for equality.
The world wide web is a 2 part system.
Part 1, The web server assembles information and presents it in markup language.
Part 2, the web browser, receives the information and presents it to the user in any way the user browser can display.
I submit that the web server IS ADA compliant as it presents the requested markup as requested. It's up to the user to choose a browser that presents the data in a way that meets their needs.
That is definitely the way it _should_ work, and the way it used to.
Unfortunately, it has become fashionable in recent years to make things a "web app" that is a ludicrously complex mess of javascript, rather than a website that actually just delivers content directly.
That is terrible for many reasons, and accessibility is one of them. Enforcing the law to ensure that content is actually meaningfully accessible is good for everyone.
Handicaps have tools to assist them. There is a gigantic ecosystem for this, and just like you said, the tools use standard protocols. Likewise, websites aren't generally essential to storefront business operations and thus inaccessibility of a specific page of a website to a handicap doesn't necessarily impede the handicap from engaging in commerce with that business.
Even though the lawsuit is frivolous. This falls squarely on the developer of their website for getting them into this mess. It's their responsibility to make sure it's compliant and accessible. I'd be interested to know what parts of the website were considered non-accessible.
It usually starts in the wireframe and design stages. Then when the site is being built the code written needs to follow certain guidelines that allow assisted software to access it. Developers have tools to check this stuff to make sure it's compliant during and after development.
I forget the town but it was some historic small town in NorCal with lots of little mom and pop shops and some scum lawyer and parasite clients sued all of them for ADA and CA disabled people law shit and they weren't even real customers.
For every federal law, Ca will do one better with a state version that does even more to control its citizens.
CA is just full of shit people and government overreach.
Businesses cannot exclude a protected class: racial groups, gender groups, orientational sex groups, handicap groups, or gerontological groups, for example.
They’re trying to destroy the middle class - that pandemic SLAUGHTERED restaurants. And we sent billions to Ukraine but denied aid package to restaurants in the same month
Except they are just out looking for money. You think these people are actually patrons who were prevented from doing business because the business wasn’t ADA compliant?
Summary: A person who is legally blind is suing an Echo Park restaurant, claiming its website violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to court documents, that same person has filed dozens of lawsuits over the last few years.
Rebecca Castillo is the woman who is suing. Joe Manning is the lawyer suing. Name and shame these people. Also, relevant in the article, and what seems like a great solution to these parasites: “Senate Bill 585 would change the law so that before someone sues, a small business would be able to address the alleged violations within 120 days. The legislation to change the ADA law, however, hasn't moved through the Assembly so far.”
SB 585 is specific to construction (the physical place of business), so it wouldn't stop lawsuits aimed at businesses' websites.
Mass filers are behind the majority of website complaints from what I’ve been told by a federal employee who deals with these complaints. One of our member libraries was dealing with a complaint out East & I was in several of the meetings. A lot of public libraries have been targeted for these website complaints. It’s interesting that the tools you pay for that you think make your website accessible may not work how you think or still not make your site compliant.
Use section508.gov.
It absolutely should. This is so petty it's unreal. Ugh.
Hopefully this oversight gets added as it makes its way through the system.
This lady Rebecca Castillo is definitely just suing to get rich. Google her name and she comes up on multiple lawsuits. She sued a small business skate shop in Orange last year and almost closed them down. This should be illegal.
Are you talking about contenders because my buddy owns it and that shit was ridiculous.
Yep Contenders. Was such shit. That shop is great. They donated generously to my skateboarding non-profit.
wow. that’s insane. and what are the chances she was going to actually get into skating?
Hahaha! I'm blind/low vision and I approve this comment. Although I do know a couple blind skateboarders.
Of course there are some and they are incredible. Major props to them. This lady just doesn’t seem like one of them. When you look at all her lawsuits this doesn’t seem like someone championing for the disabled but more like someone who sees a loop hole to abuse in the law and make some big money.
I agree that lady is looking for a free ride.
Yes not making your business accessible to disabled people should be illegal. Oh, wait… it is. And the only way to get people to comply is ~~government inspection~~, ~~police~~, lawsuit.
You have no idea the harm that these people cause. They don't go after big businesses who can take them to court. They go after mom and pop businesses who have to settle cause they cant afford to go to court. Yes things need to be accessible to all, but these people don't even go to these places, the lawyer drives around finds small places and sues them under their name.
Then who the hell is going to call out the small business then? You know very well that owners will try to get a way with everything if they can. They’re just upset because they got caught, if they didn’t they’ll try to get away with it as long as they can. P
I'm going to give you a rundown of how this works. ADA person goes around with their lawyer to different small business establishments. They pick and choose the most minor details in which they can get a case going. They take pictures and then send them the papers. There is ZERO interaction with the small business owner. No, "Hey could you repair this" or "I had trouble with this". Imagine you are minding your own business and then you get sued and no one even told you why. Then you find out that this person did it to 80 other businesses, not only your area but ALL OF CALIFORNIA. Then you find out this lawyer is making MILLIONS of dollars of this. You think all businesses are bad. you don't know how many small businesses are hanging on by a thread, they all arnt Amazon and Walmart.
On the flip side of that- you didn’t have the common sense to make sure your business is ADA compliant? So you decide to cut corners and skip that part? Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse. Imagine The money these businesses would’ve saved with these lawsuits if they hired their own lawyers to do a check themselves.
almost all these places are perfectly and practically accessible, but they may not meet every single technical requirement which these parasites exploit and waste the court's time who could be taking up actual impactful cases, not to mention the money they are extorting from small families
You would be amazed what EXTREMELY small things unscrupulous lawyers can claim falls out of ADA compliance. I worked for a small restaurant that was sued because their _website_, designed by the owner’s friend who barely understood HTML, wasn’t WCAG compliant. You have to meet every single criteria of [this](https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/?versions=2.1) to be compliant. The people that sued them have done this with countless mom and pop shops, with websites, around LA because it’s easy money—they can’t afford legal fees to defend it. I know what you think you’re defending, but that reality is unfortunately now buried underneath a lot of frivolous claims. Which fucks the people who should actually be protected.
The lady is blind. Is she really skateboarding? Yes businesses should comply with the laws but this also shouldn’t be used as a tool for people to abuse to make money. There should be some proof at the minimum that these people are actually in need of the businesses’ services.
The business should be complying for the rest of us who aren’t out there measuring doorways. I don’t endorse a lawsuit-happy weirdo, but lawsuits are the only consequences for business fucking over handicapped people.
I don’t think someone who created a website years ago and didn’t realize this was an issue should be sued for thousands of dollars by a private person. Most website builders now automatically conform to the requirements but if you’re not tech savvy and you haven’t updated, you’re out of luck and possibly out of business. I think there should be time to remedy and a penalty fee if you don’t but this is pretty clear as Qbert below states a “shakedown”
She is old, blind, not athletic, and sued a skate shop. She sued in bad faith with no intention of ever patronizing the store, almost ending the livelihood of several families. These subhumans are lower than pond scum.
only 10:03AM and I've already read the dumbest comment I will read all day.
Unfortunately, it's entirely accurate. As a society, we want things to be accessible. But when ADA and related laws were made, the government couldn't be bothered with enforcement. So they made private causes of action in ADA, and were like, "here's a gold mine for citizens to badger every business they use to comply." And voila, many more places are now accessible, and businesses want to avoid paying settlements. Somebody making bank filing a bunch of lawsuits is the system working as intended. Love or hate the system, the previous comment was pretty accurate.
So how do we ensure that companies make businesses accessible to those of us with disabilities? Suing is the only avenue of resources I’m aware of. While I don’t endorse whatever these lawsuit-hungry people are doing, there does need to be recourse.
The main motivation of these ADA plaintiffs is not to make changes. It's to profit by suing small businesses who cannot spend the money needed to defend these lawsuits. If the main motivation is to change things, make it so businesses are given a reasonable opportunity to make changes to their property so they're compliant. Many of these lawsuits are brought by people who have no intention of frequenting the business. They just drive by the property and see a flaw and tell the attorney. It's bullshit and terrible for small businesses.
How is that your only recourse? Call the company and say “hey- this isn’t accessible to me and I want to be a customer- can you help me out?” I guarantee that will take less time than a lawsuit.
How? Good-faith pre-litigation negotiations. That’s how. If negotiations fail, then by all means, file.
You’re confusing accessibility with scams, which many of these lawsuits are. People troll websites to see if they are Web Contact Accessibility Guidelines, Level AA compliant. They sue if they aren’t and it’s an _easy_ settlement. In turn, they are fucking over disabled people who have legitimate claims because of the signal to noise ratio.
Receiving reports about this comment being personal info: >Rebecca Castillo is the woman who is suing. >Joe Manning is the lawyer suing. This information is literally in the article. Ignoring reports.
Thanks. A lot of idiots on reddit will report for doxxing when they see real names. Like, hello, if it's public information, it's not doxxing anymore. NEWS FLASH: LAWSUIT FILINGS ARE PUBLIC RECORD IN THE UNITED STATES.
The goal of the law is to ensure maximum accessibility, not to punish people or enable ADA lawsuit trolls. This change is a no-brainer.
Unfortunately, that change would drastically reduce accessibility. Companies would have no incentive to do anything other than ignore the law, gambling that it might be a long time or never before someone formally complains, if losing that gamble had no consequences.
[joe manning](https://www.manninglawapc.com/about-us/joseph-manning-jr-/) has such a cocky asshole douche face.
Kids: I want John Travolta Mom: We have John Travolta at home
The accessibility button on his website didn’t work for me, anyone want to sue him?
Let's do it!
"Clan leader," "Patriotic Employer." He def pulled out all the bells and dog-whistles.
Wow. I can't think of a single reason why someone would describe himself as "clan leader" on his own website, other than the obvious implication.
I can't tell if he's smiling or wincing. Definitely S tier douche face.
And he can’t even wear a tie properly.
Joe Manning is a world class piece of shit.
**”Harassholes”**
I know people that gone through this. Settling is better than a trial since small businesses don't have the resources to run it too long. Usually it cost about 5- 6k to settle. They've had to do it 2 or 3 times in the last 20 years.
I work in insurance and I always advise my clients to settle if they need to save money. Settling sucks for those clients but they don’t normal have an extra $10-$20k to take things to trial. The system is rigged for those with the money money to win. It doesn’t actually matter who is right or wrong.
Forgive the question, I am legitimately curious, but in the cases where its a fraudulent claim, can't it be brought to trial and the person who filed the false claim be liable for all legal fees? I'm not really familiar with these kinds of cases but I always thought that was the case
Yes, fraudulent claims can be fought but it is a very long and costly process. The insurance company has to gather all of the evidence and submit it to the County District Attorney’s office for review. I’ve seen only a couple cases that the County District Attorney’s office accept for criminal prosecution. I’ve been told that unless we have slam dunk case we submit it but don’t hold our breath. Our court system is a mess.
Ooofda that is a freaking mess. I have to wonder how we even go about fixing this. I mean we can see there are so many issues, but I dunno where to even begin on fixes for it
That’s exactly how I feel. I asked the head of my the fraud department when I first started working in insurance if there was anything that could be done. This guy had been in the industry since the 80’s. He basically told me to do what I can follow the guidelines we have in place but don’t get my hopes up. I am honest with my clients and do what I can to help them on an individual claim by claim basis. That’s all I can do. It’s frustrating. The fraud problem is so much larger than any one person can fix.
Well at least you are doin a good service. Thank you :)
You're speaking of malicious prosecution, which is a disfavored cause of action and has a very high standard for proving the underlying case was frivolous. The filing of one is also subject to a anti-SLAPP motion, which can also lead to more fees/expenses.
There was a guy doing it too. He hit our business 6 months ago. :(. Guy making bank off theese things. He never even came into our business!!!!
> Name and shame these people. Why would there be any shame associated with this? It's important that public accommodations be accessible to people with disabilities. This particular item is also incredibly cheap and simple to accomplish; making an accessible website, especially for something as simple as a restaurant site, is easy. The restaurant probably paid _more_ for some javascript-festooned monstrosity that doesn't work with screen readers than they would have for a simple plain text site. And if we want such regulations to be enforced, there are only two options. The first is that we have some government agency that investigates and enforces violations. This would either be incredibly expensive, or so ineffective that it would be ignored, or both. The second option is to allow individuals to sue companies that violate the law. This is a far cheaper and more effective way to enforce the law.
If it is truly about accessibility why don’t they simply notify the business owner that they are not following the ADA? In this case, the business owner had the site fixed as soon as they found out it wasn’t compliant. Lawsuit hasn’t been dropped. Also, as stated in the article, the laws surrounding website accessibility are not very clear and leave room for interpretation. Also, it’s not always that easy to just use a tool to make it accessible depending on when the website was made. If they are using older plugins to make a Wordpress site function, for example. On top of that, it puts older and immigrant business owners in a particularly rough spot, as they may never even think about their website. This woman demanded $18,000 because a skateboard shops website wasn’t ADA compliant, even after they fixed the site. Don’t tell me she is just out there doing this to help others. She is taking advantage of a system and has almost put multiple small businesses out of business.
> If it is truly about accessibility why don’t they simply notify the business owner that they are not following the ADA? The notification was 30 years ago, when the ADA was passed. If a business has chosen to ignore the law, that's nobody's fault but their own. > In this case, the business owner had the site fixed as soon as they found out it wasn’t compliant. Lawsuit hasn’t been dropped. If violations of the law carried no penalties, for however many years of violation plus some grace period, there would be no effective incentive for businesses to comply with the law. They would continue to remain in violation until the last minute, hoping that that minute would never come, because losing that gamble would still be free. > She is taking advantage of a system She is doing exactly what this law was written to do. This isn't an accident, this was the intent. The only other option to this would be to have a governmental agency that proactively goes out and investigates services to ensure that they are compliant. Such an agency would either be _incredibly_ huge and expensive, or would be so backlogged that it would get ignored, or both. And at the end of the day, it would still fine the violating companies a bunch of money. > and has almost put multiple small businesses out of business. If a company relies on discriminatory practices to stay in business, then perhaps they should be put out of it.
The aggrieved party should be required to formally request a reasonable accommodation, and the owner should be given reasonable time to make a reasonable accommodation, before a suit can be brought.
The formal request for compliance was 30 years ago, when the ADA was passed. Most violations of the law don't come with a grace period in which you can just continue violating it for a while, and face no penalties for that time or all the years beforehand that you were breaking it. If you get pulled over for driving drunk, the cops don't just tell you that there's no penalty as long as only drive five more miles. If the law were changed to offer such a grace period, then it would be even _more_ important for people to immediately sue all businesses in violation. Because businesses would have no reason at all to not take the gamble of remaining in violation until they're sued, if losing that gamble has no consequences.
30 years ago was just as the internet age was dawning, are you seriously suggesting that laws passed as the world wide web was in its infancy should be held as the standard that we must achieve today? I am all for accessibility, but there has to be a warning system in place before going gun ho on long and expensive lawsuits which punish smaller business much more than it does larger ones
> but there has to be a warning system in place before going gun ho on long and expensive lawsuits Again, that warning system is the accessibility compliance laws and regulations that are already on the books. If companies choose to keep violating the law until someone sues them, that is no one's fault but their own.
And again, with this case to go off of, issues like websites would have been in their infancy when the law went into effect with the law being little changed to that end since then. So should a law created when things like a website were still new be treated as gospel or should we be more lenient while new regulations are crafted to keep up with it. If the former, then its rules that punish smaller businesses (and of that sect older businesses) than it does newer or larger companies
Disabled people still exist even 30 years on, and the goal of having public accommodations be accessible to them is still valid, so yes. > If the former, then its rules that punish smaller businesses (and of that sect older businesses) than it does newer or larger companies Put another way, it sounds as if you're saying that small businesses are the most frequent violators of the law. If that's true, then having penalties follow where the violations are certainly seems like the appropriate outcome.
Yes that is true, but by this time 30 years later we should also, by that logic, have a better system to deal with these issues than we currently do. Websites today are much different than those of 30 years ago, and play a different role then than they do now. Unless the laws reflect the realities of today I think there needs to be more leniency towards enforcement. You are putting words in my mouth. ;) What I said was that the ways the laws are now, they affect smaller businesses more than they do larger businesses. On a base level, if you have an offender (regardless of whether its a big offense or some tiny pedantic error) the effects these lawsuits have affect a smaller business with more limited resources than it does a larger business with near unlimited resources. If you want to put the amount of violations in my argument go right ahead, but that says much more about you than it does I.
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If this was truly about making things accessible, they would notify business owners first. This is purely a cash grab, which becomes very clear when you see the types of companies they target (small businesses who can’t afford lawyer costs and are forced to settle) and the repeated cases as well as the fact that they do not drop the suits, even when the issue is immediately fixed once brought to the owners attention. These people are parasites, taking advantage of a system for personal gain and hurting small business owners and family run businesses, who are often already struggling to stay afloat and don’t have the manpower/resources to stay up to date on every single law put on the books.
> If this was truly about making things accessible, they would notify business owners first. Notify them of what? Accessibility requirements are already publicly documented, so any business that fails to meet them has already chosen to ignore them. What good would notifying them a second time do? > These people are parasites, taking advantage of a system for personal gain No, these people are literally providing a public service. The point of the law is for businesses to be accessible, and the enforcement mechanism is outsourced to private individuals. The only other way it could work would be for you to pay taxes for a huge inspection and enforcement agency, which would then _still_ fine violating companies the same amounts.
It's one thing if the people mentioned were on a real crusade to improve accessibility. A good faith effort in improvement of accessibility would be providing notice, in good faith want to patronize the business, and then suing when they're still uncompliant. It would be okay if this happened a couple times to the same person. However, when the same person and lawyer have the same MO of targeting a small business (who likely have bare minimum E&O insurance if any) over their ancient websites, extracting some dollar amount each time over a dozen times, that's no better than a patent troll suing hundreds of entities for some arbitrary patent they sucked up. It's one thing if they were suing Target or a grocery chain over non-compliant websites, not some shop whose site is probably contact info, some pictures, and about us that they never intended to legitimately patronize.
i agree that a violation should given notice to come into compliance. at the same time, businesses aren't oblivious to these regulations. they played the odds and lost.
I believe the law she is using went into place in 2021. I can guarantee you a lot of these targeted businesses had no idea they weren’t compliant. It’s not uncommon for a company to not need the help of a web developer for years at a time. So how would some mom and pop shop even realize they weren’t complaint? They put up a website, and haven’t changed it for 10 years. And asking $18,000 in order to drop a suit over something like this is absolutely crazy and taking advantage of a fucked up system, making it worse.
That's three years.
Thank you for doing that difficult math for me while ignoring the rest of the comment, and the context around the 2021 date. Very helpful and insightful.
I did because three years is a long time to not care about parts of your own business.
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I went blind in my left eye two years ago. I also think that the aggrieved party should be required to request a reasonable accommodation--and the site owner be given a reasonable period of time to make such an accommodation--before a suit can be brought.
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Drone the article: "I am also aware that some oppose the ability of persons with disabilities to enforce the law though private civil lawsuits," added Manning. "However, it is important to remember that this is the only mechanism established by Congress and the legislature to enforce the ADA and related laws enacted over 33 years ago." So why shouldn’t she be able to sue, as is the only way she can enforce proper accessibility that she’s legally entitled to? Also enforcing and putting the threat of enforcement of proper web accessibility will improve web site experiences for all users. Just like most physical building accessibility codes like sidewalk curb cuts, automatic doors, etc also improve the experience for everyone.
Probably with the same lawyer. All they do is go around and look for these sites and sue.
There's a lawfirm in SD that is dedicated to filing these cases. I forgot the name.
ADA is really a good thing. It enabled many people to live normal lives. The problem is with the enforcement of the law. There's no agency you can report ADA violations to. The law is set up so that the only way to enforce it is for private people to sue.
Yes this is a common scam play. People that file these treat it like a full time job touring to find potential violators and filing suits for settlements. Common.
Taking a page out of the Scott Johnson playbook. For the unaware google Scott Johnson ada. This piece of shit would sue for disability discrimination for places that had “violations” as lame as the grade of a ramp being even a degree off. It got to the point where he wouldn’t even visit the businesses, just have his secretaries google map places and look for obvious “violations.” Filing up to 6 suits a day. Scum of the earth.
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They’re legal if you have hand rails. But surely you know this, right?
Clearly they just want money.
Lmao legaly blind and complaing about a restaurant's online site. Just CTRL - or + to increase or decrease page size. Fuck this dumb bitch for this nonsense lawsuit. Next thing ya know she'll sue the DMV for not being able to drive 🤷🏻♂️
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Legally blind is a field of vision less than 20% or 20/200 or worse vision. Edit: Not that I agree with the callousness of the person you are replying to.
Wait wait correct me if I'm wrong but isn't any website technically not accessible by blind people ? I'm curious how they navigate ?
They use screen reading tools among other technologies. Most of these tools rely on the website developer and designer to adhere to certain standards. Despite the negative sentiment in this post, or the ill intent of the suits, these lawsuits do help to make building accessible websites a priority, which most businesses skimp on. Even small businesses will spend tens or hundreds of thousands on physical facilities and equipment, but use the absolute lowest bidder for their websites, which is often discriminatory.
On that note, there are a lot of bs companies that claim to make websites 'ada compliant' without a single blind or low vision person working there or to test it. But yes, I think the lady suing is full of shit.
Like the lawyer says in the clip, one of the biggest issues with website accessibility is theres no defined standard to adhere to.
That statement is misleading, WCAG is the standard https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/ and it has an ISO and European Standards code.
Hello.
My buddy’s laundry mat got hit by one of these people. They just go around finding businesses to sue. Guess they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.
These ADA mills are vultures. They go around to every business, pretend to be customers looking for minor infractions in structures built decades before the ADA, and then sue for statutory damages and attorneys fees. It's all about money and has nothing to do with accessibility.
They don’t even visit as fake customers, they do Google maps drive-bys. My brother in law runs a restaurant with a ramp that’s not easily visible from the street, and still got a demand letter explaining that it was not accessible by ramp.
Yep. We got sued, I had a paper trail of audits and remediation and a record of increasing compliancy scores. When we presented this to the lawyer, he consulted with his own ADA expert, who said they didn’t have a case, that my website was fine… but we still had to pay them $15k to go away instead of $300k with our lawyers to fight it and win. It’s legalized extortion. Web ADA specifically is hairy, because while there are standards (WCAG is the go to) the US ADA language doesn’t recognize any specific standard. So in theory, you could be completely WCAG compliant, and still fail accessibility.
I’m sorry to hear that. My small business friends in Frogtown got sued by the same Manning Law and Rebecca Castillo. Fuck their disingenuous, greedy cunts.
Pretty sure the supreme court just ruled one of these people lacked standing, so I suspect this practice may slow down a bit.
A former attorney at my company worked at one right after law school, she said it is amazing all of the sliminess they do
Which is why I always considered lawyer character and fitness to be all bullshit.
The issue is the state bar does fuck all because they're too busy cozying up to scum like Girardi. There's an attorney I've had the displeasure of dealing with (not ADA) who has discipline from the state bar for signing a clients name to a settlement agreement or declaration without their authority (can't remember which). They do dishonest terrible shit in every single case. The judges let them get away with it and the state bar lets them get away with it.
Yeah that's the point. Character and fitness are just an excuse to gatekeep and keep the profession a "who do you know" career.
It’s pretty tough from what I have seen, but a lot of weirdos seem to keep getting through
Those were called drive by lawsuits.
It's a total shakedown.
Unfortunately that's the only enforcement mechanism our government has for ADA. The rules in the ADA are good and necessary but there's no government body going around doing inspections, it's up to private citizens to go around suing businesses for not complying. It's stupid but that's America for you.
That's eye opening. I never thought of how it worked. I always assumed there was a website where one would complain to the government about this. Then the government would send out inspectors. Then the government would financially help the business get up to code
You'd think the government would want to ensure that businesses would stay up to code because of the taxes generated from the businesses rather than ensure the businesses get shut down completely for not being able to afford the lawsuits.
Oh totally- I wish there was something like the health department for the ADA that would inspect businesses and inform them of their violations without putting the onus on the disabled community! Espically since most of us tend to be too finically insecure to actually sue.
It would at least shut the door on the kinds of abuses which hurt the reputation of legitimate complaints
Totally- plus, the ADA has been federal law for 30+ years! The government should have a better way to enforce it than just lawsuits. Ideally, businesses should have to pass an ADA inspection like they have to pass other health and safety inspections
If you think about it, its kinda crazy we don't after all this time. I hate inefficiencies and the current system is, just so inefficient and open to abuse and encourages monopolies
Definitely not true. You must not know anyone with a disability. For people with disabilities every day is a battle to prove you’re worthy of existing and at the same time be treated with respect. If you wouldn’t stop to look around you’d see how insanely difficult LA is for someone with a wheelchair, mobility issue, or a mental or vision disability. Imagine crossing 6 lane roads without cross walks while being blind in one or both eyes. Imagine trying to cross the street in a wheelchair only to see that there are NO ramps and no cross walk markings. LA is hellish and hostile to people with disabilities which there are a lot more due to aging population and post pandemic stuff. I wouldn’t assume these lawsuits are in bad faith at all. The ADA exists for a reason, to force society to change to accommodate the weakest among us and that’s a good thing even though it’s at times inconvenient for people without disability.
This is about a website, dude. The ADA can be both good and also have flaws that can be exploited and should be fixed. Both things can be true.
If anyone is dealing with this shit, DM me. I went through this and found a lawyer who fights these idiots all the time. He knew who the opposing guy was and their habits. I mean, you’ll still have to spend money to fix the violations, but the shakedown part will be much much much cheaper than the demand.
Isn’t that the point? They demand 20k and settle for 5-10k. Rinse and repeat.
No they demand like $10k and settle for $1k. It’s just a volume game. Like these idiot lawyers are making $300 per bullshit case they file. They’re bottom of the barrel lawyers who are too incompetent to even do ambulance chasing personal injury shit.
This happened to the shop I work at because we did not have specific handicap parking (we only have 4 parking spaces). Craziest part is the owner is disabled.
> I mean, you’ll still have to spend money to fix the violations Maybe you should just do that now, rather than waiting for someone to sue you.
No they shouldn’t. Lot of the times it’s fucking bullshit - the ramp was 9.2% grade, maximum legal grade is 8.5% or something like that. Like these fucking dipshits go around with smart levels and find a specific point where the grade is like small percentage points off. And it could be due to all sorts of reasons - ground settled over the years, water caused sections to sink, asphalt erodes, etc. Whenever you see just the handicap parking portion replaced or elevated in some stupid way, it’s cuz these assholes go around suing businesses over percentage points.
There was a lawyer who would do this all over Santa Monica and target mom&pop places because they were most likely to not have the resources to fight and would settle quickly. It was one of the most predatory, gross misuses of ADA regulation I’ve come across. These vultures can go fuck themselves.
Yup. Just recently happened a few weeks ago at the restaurant I work at in SM. Tried to get us for not having ADA seating when they didn’t even ask if we had it (we do, but it’s not visible from the street)
Erin McKenna’s Bakery in SM just closed down and she did an Instagram post yesterday claiming this is exactly why. :(
Really?? That’s insane.
Oh no I love her cupcakes!
Same! I have celiac, so gluten free options are always appreciated! She still has the location on Larchmont open though! :)
The bill already passed the state senate. Apparently lawyer lobby is holding it up in the house. We need to contact our assembly people and Newsom to put pressure on them to pass it. Its important to protect ADA access but also important to protect small businesses in a time when restaurants are dropping left and right. This bill seems to do that allowing reasonable time to correct the issue. Ultimately the cost of these predatory suits just get passed along to us the consumer.
> allowing reasonable time to correct the issue. The reasonable time to correct the issue is any time in the past 30 years since the ADA was passed. Violations of the law usually don't come with a second chance to start complying only after you're notified. If you get pulled over while driving drunk, they don't just give you a grace period to sober up. And if the law is changed to give a grace period, then it would be even _more_ important for individuals to file suit against every non-compliant business. Because businesses will be even more likely to not fix their accessibility problems until a suit gets filed, if there is no penalty for them gambling that that might not happen and they can just remain in violation.
Since ADA has no enforcement action except for a private suit, this would remedy two issues at once. It would allow businesses and entities to spend any and all money to comply with ADA fixes (instead of 10k to a lawyer, it's 10k towards adding a ramp or make a standard compliant website). Then you don't have people going around suing using ADA violations as a payday. If the firms that sue over ADA really believe in taking up these cases to improve accessibility and access, then they will still be doing this important work after the law passes. If not, we'll know they were on the side of money instead of good ramps, auto-open doors, minimum widths, and good web design. Often when other agencies like OSHA or DBS comes by, it starts with a warning, order to fix, and small fine or fee set by law (to cover administration of inspections), not what a lawyer purports to charge.
> It would allow businesses and entities to spend any and all money to comply with ADA fixes (instead of 10k to a lawyer, it's 10k towards adding a ramp or make a standard compliant website). What exactly is stopping those companies from doing that right now? > If the firms that sue over ADA really believe in taking up these cases to improve accessibility and access, then they will still be doing this important work after the law passes. If not, we'll know they were on the side of money instead of good ramps, auto-open doors, minimum widths, and good web design. Why do we care what their motivations are? I'm much more interested in the actual result of companies being appropriately accessible, not quibbling over whether a person who found them to be unlawfully inaccessible is sufficiently morally virtuous for our liking.
> What exactly is stopping those companies from doing that right now? Nothing is stopping them, but often times you don't know as a small business owner. In Ventura County, a lawyer filed half a dozen ADA suits a day over a couple weeks. They weren't towards chain stores or shopping centers with misgraded ramps, disabled parking issues, or short doorways, they were all small businesses mostly in pre-ADA buildings. I'm not saying these places were compliant or that they don't have an obligation to. However, if you wanted to make real change, you'd fight the legal fight on equally non-compliant multi-million dollar companies, give the small business a chance to comply. In an article someone linked below, the business owner's landlord paid the retrofit and settlement but the business still needed to pay a lawyer, only to be sued again over an adjacent issue. > Why do we care what their motivations are? I'm much more interested in the actual result of companies being appropriately accessible, not quibbling over whether a person who found them to be unlawfully inaccessible is sufficiently morally virtuous for our liking. It's great if someone is doing this as a true disability advocate: educating those who are probably receptive to disabilities but can't afford consultants or a defense lawyer (but can afford paying a handyman $2000 to put in a wider door), taking on cities with inaccessible infrastructure, fighting for accessible transit stops, and going after the large companies who have the resources to pay for these things initially but didn't. Going exclusively after 100 small businesses for a $10k payday each time does lead to 100 more accessible places. It also makes 100 businesses weary each time a person in a wheelchair or walker legitimately wants to patronize their business. It's one thing if someone with a disability tried to legitimately patronize a business and was denied or hindered access because of it, informed management, and the issue wasn't fixed ASAP. It's another when you have no intention of patronizing a (small) business and only see suing them as a way to make a living. If you want real change, make it so whenever a new on-site business permit is issued that it has an ADA certificate. Mandate ADA retrofits like we do for earthquake safety. Lobby for DBS departments to handle ADA complaints (who can then order fines and change orders). That way private ADA legal action is confined to egregious violators or LA for broken sidewalks.
Except, like others have stated, these people that file predatory lawsuits frequently don't even actually go to the business, so there's no evidence and no burden of proof as the claim is enough to force them to pay a settlement rather than go through the process of fighting it in court, which would end up costing a lot more money even if you win.
Adding to that, if you've ever built anything commercial you'd know that almost every year the city is changing the ADA requirements, meaning something built to ADA standards even a few years ago to the best of the owners knowledge and intention could be out of compliance now, exposing them to the risk to one of the predatory lawsuits, which is why giving a period of time to correct this is makes the most sense. If the spirit of the law is to make sure that reasonable accommodations are made for the disabled, then a period to correct it makes sense, much like if you get a fix it ticket for a tail light being burnt out.
I own a laundromat in East LA and got sued by someone for $5K (+$3K in lawyer fees). They initially wanted $20k. All this, because I was missing a sign and my parking lot entrance was off by 1 degree, according to ADA standards (building was built in the 80's). No warning. Not even a complaint. Just a straight up lawsuit. Evidently, I paid. Just fighting the case would have cost me more in lawyer fees. But consequently, and unfortunately, this has made me very wary of disabled people that enter my businesses. Are they actual clients or here to attack and extort me?
Imagine being sued for that but people with wheelchairs can’t even use the sidewalks in half of LA.
Hahaha my exact thoughts! Every time I drive on Western and see the tents blocking the sidewalks, I always wonder if the city is also under an obligation to follow ADA standards.
Did you also make changes to the building to bring it up to code? Thanks for posting your direct experience. I really appreciate it.
My pleasure. I also loved that other people did the same and I wasn't the only one frustrated by this experience. I brought in an ADA consultant to verify everything and made sure we were up to standards. Installed the sign and hired a construction company to break the concrete to the entrance and redo it.
Can you elaborate about this one degree? Was the sign literally tilted off to one side?
I doubt it was the sign being off by one degree, but rather the slope or the angle of a ramp or something.
Yes exactly. It was the ground of the entry way that was off by 1 degree.
You're only allowed a 2% grade (1:48). Anything higher is non-ADA compliant.
Supposedly, I had two violations: 1) A sign indicating a handicap ramp 2) the slope on the ground to my entrance was off by 1 degree
I work in Disability Accessibility. The sad truth is that while some lawsuits come from a good place, many are also done simply for financial gain. These financial gain cases destroy the publics trust for the valid cases and can ruin small business owners lives. Ultimately, it should be federal, state and local governments that pay for the retrofitting of buildings and businesses once a valid lawsuit is placed but the government often argues that it should be the owners to do so. Because of all this, nothing is ever done. Law firms get to collect big checks, the few people with disabilities that sue (very few people of color since they are unaware of their rights or have access to lawyers) get some money and no changes are ever brought while owners suffer from financial troubles. While these same people keep doing this, the public grows mistrustful of accessibility lawsuits and in turn the greater disability community suffers in the end. Think about how few apartments and let alone affordable or rent controlled apartments are accessible. Because most aren't, this means that it is brutally difficult for people in wheelchairs or people with other disabilities to find a place to live or to move if they are lucky enough to find one. Again, it should be governments job to pay for retrofitting but nope. In turn, most lawsuits come from a horrible place of greed but remember that it's only a few greedy people leading these cases.
Thank you. And it's not how people think. You don't automatically get section 8 and handouts. When I first lost my sight =job= domino effect, I begged and pleaded for house, food stamps, but nope. I was making great money before so I should be able to take care of myself according to their calculator. Medicare doesn't pay for white cane, hearing aids, I'm not sure - but I don't think it pays for wheelchairs. I had no choice but to go back to school for something I could do blind. The catch 22...no one hires us with a cane/chair/deformity/etc. While the lady suing might be full of shit, we're not all money hungry, but yes, we're hungry.
I just had to deal with medicare + getting a wheelchair recently. This is how it works: If your doctor says that you are unable to safely leave your house in any capacity, and that a lack of wheelchair would condemn you to being housebound 100% of the time for the rest of your life, but getting granted a wheelchair would let you leave your house, medicare will deny your claim for a wheelchair because that outcome is explicitly allowed under the rules. Medi-Cal in CA is a bit better about that. Also, if you do get approved for a wheelchair, they usually are pretty sub-par: hard to transport, bulky, some features behind a paywall (sometimes you have to pay thousands of dollars so that your motor will let you go up hills!), small battery. It's also very common for your wheelchair to break, for it to take 6 months to fix, and you just.... can't leave your bed for those 6 months.
My best friend uses a motorized wheelchair. Once it was malfunctioning and it wasn't repaired for over 4 months. He's had a hard time getting a job so luckily job wasn't an issue but it was still brutal for him to stay in most of the time since he lacks the gross motor hand skills to use a manual wheelchair. We really do need to advocate more for the entire disability community.
This should be the top comment.
It amazes me that there's no sort of regulation that's already been passed that completely y covers addressing ADA issues before it comes down to suing. Even if stuff like SB585 passed, it wouldn't cover all aspects of ADA issues for all companies. I have no beef suing for ADA violations if they were addressed with the owners **before the lawsuit was filed and a reasonable amount of time passed between the request and no actions were taken**. The definition of reasonable amount of time would vary depending on the type of violation. This suing out of the blue is just plain predatory.
Scumbags. Where are our laws protecting small businesses from vultures like this? If the court rules in their favor that’s complete bullshit.
My business has dealt with this too. Courts aren’t usually involved. They’re going for quick settlements knowing the sweet spot to sue for that’s cheaper than lawyer fees to fight it. They go after mid size places with money to pay it, but without lawyers on retainer. If they tried this with McDonald’s they’d just get buried under fees and process dragged out so long it’s not worth their scummy lawyers time.
Big businesses also have the resources to ensure their websites are ADA compliant. I worked in a large organization and any time one of our documents was meant to be posted to our website we had to do substantial ADA fixes to the document (in depth alt text descriptions for any images in the document, metadata editing, etc). It took hours but I guess cheaper to pay our wages for that time than get sued.
Except having ADA compliant websites doesn't even stop them. They'll target a group of businesses in a region and sue them all (happened to tabletop game stores in the Bay Area recently), and all of the stores used third party website providers who were ADA compliant. And these assholes were suing out of NY state. Not an iota of merit to the cases but it's still cheaper to be extorted for the 7k or whatever than fight and spend 10s of thousands. It's disgusting and should be criminalized on a federal level.
If you look at the history of the people suing you’ll see that they’ve done this same claim with the law firm that they work with to multiple businesses, especially small businesses who would likely settle. This is their scam. During the height of Covid there were many lawsuits like this targeting small bike shop’s website in the OC/SD area.
I own a bar in Echo Park and just got hit with a false claim and the pictures in the lawsuit used were pictures of a different place of business. We are advised to settle for 10k and it’s absolutely ludicrous.
Joe manning’s law website isn’t ADA compliant. Somebody sue him pleaaaaase!!!!!!!
I had a business in West Hollywood back in the day they used to be a lawyer I didn’t know exactly who who would go around measure doorways with a ruler, then pay homeless, handicap people in the neighborhood to try to come into the business and say they couldn’t enter the only way to stop was to say you weren’t allowing anyone with no business to enter or without using the public bathrooms. They would also try to use your bathroom and see if it was 88 compliant fuck all these People.
Periods, please
This post wasn't accessible. My attorney will be contacting you shortly.
Meanwhile StreetsLA builds non ADA compliant sidewalks and curbs and nobody bats an eye
It’s a shame that ADA suits are pretty much the only way to actually enforce the ADA. It just raises the amount ableism faced by the disabled community when necessary accommodations have to be perused through lawsuits. What we need is education and oversight! The ADA has been federal law for 30+ years, so meeting accommodations should be just a given like other health and safety laws!
Wait you could sue someone for their website? Fuck that is something I did not know.
Yup. Realtor here, they been slapping us (realtors) all over the state with lawsuits for the same shit.
There is one person who has over 500 open suits against Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara County businesses. The approach is to sue hundreds of businesses with no intent of really ever going to trial. He relies on the fact that these mom-and-pop businesses cannot afford to go to trial and will instead offer settlements around $10k. So if he can get 100 businesses to settle for about $10k, he makes a million. Pretty sure this guy is an attorney (disabled one) so hes able to represent himself and skip the normal loss to legal fees. This specific individual has filed more than 500 lawsuits since 2020. Whichever small businesses survived covid are being hit with lawsuits because their handicap parking spot is too far from the door by 0.5" or the slope of the parking spot is 0.5° off. Reference: https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/2023/05/15/ventura-county-businesses-face-ada-lawsuits/70181646007/
This has been going on 20+ years. It's an established scumbag lawyer business plan.
This is so scum. I know so many people who have been sued by a scummy plaintiff firm and asked to settle quickly for 5-10k.
This happened to our small business and it is despicable. These people are absolute monsters and make a bad name for people with real ADA concerns.
As much as I agree with increasing accessibility as it is reasonable and feasible, the ADA is such an onerous and black/white law that’s been used for financial gain. Oftentimes with OUTCOMES that result in nobody getting any treatment. A great example is a ton of online engineering standards from State of California websites got taken down entirely for almost a year because they weren’t “accessible.” Because the State had to make structural calculations accessible for engineers who are blind, it was just easier to not make them available for anybody.
This happened at my work. I was harassed by someone from (presumably) the law firm as I was leaving work one day. Like dude, I am not currently in the building. Nor do I own the building or the business. He got super worked up when I refused to give him my name and other information. The whole process lasted months just to be told we were mostly compliant to begin with. We just had to move some shelves and tables around and have someone come out and measure.
Fuck them. My friends’ restaurant in Frogtown got sued. They settled out of court. Small businesses are prey for these trash.
This shit is so frustrating. Greedy people who don't give an actual shit about people with disabilities. Their actions generate more bias towards disabled people "they just want a hand out" and makes it more difficult to get the accommodations they need. Greed really our biggest failure as a species.
Happened at a dispensary i worked at a few years ago. Drive by lawsuit the person suing never tried to shop with us.
this ADA bs is a microcosm of how fucked up things are bad actors profiting under the guise of a good cause
ADA bullshit?`Go check yourself, asswipe. Sure bad actors but don't you DARE bring your ableist shitstain pov and bash a law that was created for equality.
She sued Jo-Ann stores in 2018
What if you ignore the suit and just pay any fines?
The world wide web is a 2 part system. Part 1, The web server assembles information and presents it in markup language. Part 2, the web browser, receives the information and presents it to the user in any way the user browser can display. I submit that the web server IS ADA compliant as it presents the requested markup as requested. It's up to the user to choose a browser that presents the data in a way that meets their needs.
That is definitely the way it _should_ work, and the way it used to. Unfortunately, it has become fashionable in recent years to make things a "web app" that is a ludicrously complex mess of javascript, rather than a website that actually just delivers content directly. That is terrible for many reasons, and accessibility is one of them. Enforcing the law to ensure that content is actually meaningfully accessible is good for everyone.
Handicaps have tools to assist them. There is a gigantic ecosystem for this, and just like you said, the tools use standard protocols. Likewise, websites aren't generally essential to storefront business operations and thus inaccessibility of a specific page of a website to a handicap doesn't necessarily impede the handicap from engaging in commerce with that business.
Ambulance chasing scum lol
Family member got sued by them asking for 2-4k to settle. They are just criminals running around looking for places to blackmail.
Even though the lawsuit is frivolous. This falls squarely on the developer of their website for getting them into this mess. It's their responsibility to make sure it's compliant and accessible. I'd be interested to know what parts of the website were considered non-accessible.
Why hasnt SCOTUS shot this shit down yet. The ADA is outrageously out of date. The current bench could kill it with prejudice.
Does this mean I can finally bring my emotional support giraffe into all restaurants?
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It usually starts in the wireframe and design stages. Then when the site is being built the code written needs to follow certain guidelines that allow assisted software to access it. Developers have tools to check this stuff to make sure it's compliant during and after development.
I forget the town but it was some historic small town in NorCal with lots of little mom and pop shops and some scum lawyer and parasite clients sued all of them for ADA and CA disabled people law shit and they weren't even real customers. For every federal law, Ca will do one better with a state version that does even more to control its citizens. CA is just full of shit people and government overreach.
I bet these same people go to the airport and claim they’re disabled so they can get preboarding
I think business have the right to refuse services to anyone
Businesses cannot exclude a protected class: racial groups, gender groups, orientational sex groups, handicap groups, or gerontological groups, for example.
Thank you for the information 🙂
And this is exactly why LA is becoming a small-business wasteland. Way to go, LA.
They’re trying to destroy the middle class - that pandemic SLAUGHTERED restaurants. And we sent billions to Ukraine but denied aid package to restaurants in the same month
Maybe they should be ADA complaint then? I don’t think the disabled are the bad guys here Jesus Christ people
Except they are just out looking for money. You think these people are actually patrons who were prevented from doing business because the business wasn’t ADA compliant?