The Supreme Court will consider the strength of the Americans with Disabilities Act on Wednesday when it hears a dispute over whether a self-appointed “tester” of the civil rights law has the right to sue hotels over alleged violations of its provisions.
How the justices rule could have a significant impact on the practical effectiveness of the landmark legislation, which aims to shield individuals with disabilities from discrimination in public accommodations and a host of other settings.
At the center of the dispute is Deborah Laufer, a disability rights advocate who has brought hundreds of lawsuits against hotels she says are not in compliance with ADA rules requiring hotels to disclose information about how accessible they are to individuals with disabilities.
Laufer, a Florida resident who uses a wheelchair and has a visual impairment, doesn’t intend to visit the hotels she’s suing. Instead, the complaints are made in an effort to force the hotels to update their websites to be in compliance with the law. Legal experts say the strategy, known as “testing,” is necessary to ensure enforcement of the historic law.
Article has a point, it’s the governments job to enforce this stuff, especially since the person is just checking random websites to see if they mention something, and immediately suing them if it’s missing information…
If they’re doing this to raise awareness, it’s working, but I can’t tell from the article if that’s their goal or they’re just trying to amass money from settlements.
I can’t see the Supreme Court ruling in the plaintiffs favor
Edit:
Found another article with more info
https://19thnews.org/2023/10/supreme-court-acheson-laufer-americans-with-disabilities-act/
She claims to not make money on this, but at least for ones in Cali the plaintiff can get 4k for each one. So I’m not sure if she means “haven’t made a profit” instead of “never received payouts”. She filed over 600 of these all over the country, I doubt she hasn’t done one in Cali.
Also, apparently the defendant has to pay legal fees for the plantif, and her old lawyer got caught “grossly exaggerating hours worked” so that might be the motivation if there was also kickbacks.
Especially with how many she does, I’d imagine her lawyer didn’t need a lot of time to file these. It’s possible the lawyer would overbill X hours and then give her a cut.
Definitely seems like there might be something shady happening, since we already know her lawyer was being shady.
they’re just trying to amass money from settlements
5-4 Pod covered this on the linked episode. The discussion of the case starts around 51:20. But, no, there’s no money to made here. The testers identify non-compliance and then the hotel gets sued. That almost always means the hotel settles to become compliant; they just fix the problem.
They also address the idea of it being government’s job to enforce to enforce the ADA? How? Where do the resources come from? There’s no money to be made here because the business just fixes the problem. It’s purely a drain on government resources to enforce the ADA. But if testers can’t sue for non-compliance then the effectiveness of the ADA plummets: it basically becomes an unenforceable law.
Granted, these aren’t legal arguments. They’re based on the reality of what happens and will happen if testers can’t sue, should the Supreme Court decide that.
But, no, there’s no money to made here.
Legally, except in some states like Cali where they get 4k a case…
And one of her past lawyers was using illegal means to make money off this:
Laufer’s own legal representation in other ADA cases represents one way this system can be abused. Her former lawyer Gillespie was suspended for six months for allegedly exaggerating the number of hours he worked on her cases, inflating the amount he was able to take from the defendants through legal fees. This is the same misconduct cited by Laufer’s current lawyer, Kelsi Brown Corkran, in their effort to have the Supreme Court case dismissed. It is unclear how common this issue is.
https://19thnews.org/2023/10/supreme-court-acheson-laufer-americans-with-disabilities-act/
Do we know if she got kickbacks from her lawyer doing that? Nope. Maybe that lawyer was just shady and she didn’t know/care.
But it would explain why she’s trying to get a recent case thrown out, and the people she sued are trying to take it to court.
Using the defendant would be happy their case was dismissed
There’s a simple protection against this sort of trolling: Comply with the ADA.
She is no better than a patent troll. Clogging up the legal system as a career. You shouldn’t be able to bring an ADA suit unless you are actually inconvenienced by it. I see so many ADA issues in the world especially my neighborhood sidewalks. Can anyone bring random lawsuits or do I have to be in a wheelchair? The person in the article is not actually being inconvenienced why would I need to be.
And then no-one with a wheelchair will move into your neighborhood because it’s so inaccessible and voila, you have successfully circumvented the ADA to keep those disabled people out of your neighborhood.
This is one way issues like systemic racism just stay entrenched.
She’s not suing over physical stuff like accessibility tho…
She’s suing random small independent hotels if their website isn’t good enough.
Something they’d probably be willing to update if she just sent them an email instead of suing them.
I know this lady seems awful, but the concept of a “tester” extends to other issues where invalidating the concept basically allows the illegal behavior to exist unchecked.
Let’s use the example of a bar that has a locally known, but unwritten, rule against allowing in black patrons. This isn’t legal. But you can’t really bring suit unless an unfamiliar black traveler tries to stumble into the bar, only to be told they’re not allowed. Or someone who knows the unwritten rule exists can go to get denied, thereby providing actionable proof of discrimination for a lawsuit.
That’s not what’s happening here…
She doesn’t go to these places, and she’s not suing about actual accommodations.
She’s suing every hotel who’s website doesn’t have a blurb about ADA. The big chains all have this, it’s the small local hotels that haven’t updated their websites since the 90s because most of their business is walk in.
That’s not what’s happening here…
Be careful with this reasoning. The Supreme Court decision will apply to all cases if testers, malicious or good faith. The specific case is relevant, obviously, but that’s not all that should be considered.
Yeah, but I get the feeling that the current Supreme Court is going to rule against the tester due to legal standing. I can easily see that tester cases require actual injury.
Yeah, but jumping immediately to lawsuits isn’t the best way to handle this.
The best way would be after a business is notified they have X amount of time to correct the issue. Then if they they don’t, they’re open to lawsuits.
The ADA gets enforced, and small business don’t have to pay out an insane amount of lawyers fees because their website was missing a blurb
The only people “harmed” by that would be lawyers, especially the ones fraudulently billing hours in these cases. And any plaintiffs taking illegal kickbacks from their lawyers.
It seems pretty common sense to me, but what do I know? I’m just a disabled veteran who actually has to deal with this stuff.
I think this particular woman’s actions are a waste of people’s time and money, and are of dubious provenance to “solve” anything. That’s not at all my point.
My point is that a ruling that eliminates “testers” for cases of discrimination, as she claims she is doing here, would have wide-ranging negative implications for civil rights laws throughout the country, not solely the ADA.
The best thing that could really happen here is that the SC moots the case because the websites have been updated - I tend to think that’s the right outcome, since the “harm” was remedied.
But she’s just going to keep suing others…
So why not madate that time to update their websites rather than clogging up the court system and changing them her lawyers fees?
Hell, even including a fine when they were notified would be better than the current situation. At least then the money would go to enforcing the ADA and not just her lawyers who she’s either not vetting or ok with them breaking the law.
I don’t think you’re understanding how big the red flag is that her last lawyer got a six month suspension, and her current lawyer is fighting for their cases not to go to court.
It seems very likely she’s getting kickbacks and found a new shady lawyer willing to keep it going.
The whole thing screams “abuse of the legal system”.
Listen, I get that you don’t like what this woman is doing. I really do. But the solution isn’t to invalidate testers as a legal concept, that’s what you’re not getting. The solution is for Congress to amend the ADA to allow for some sort of curing mechanism on notice issues. Not for the Court to issue some overly broad ruling that invalidates the “tester” concept that’s proven so crucial to proving racial and gender discrimination, which this plaintiff has built her case atop. Maybe there’s a way for them to thread the needle to smack her down and keep that legal concept alive, but I’m not counting on it with this particular Court.
The nation, and you as a disabled vet who benefits from ADA protections, benefits more if she prevails or the case is mooted, than it and you would if the Court decides to undermine the legal concept of a tester. You have to think beyond your initial revulsion over her suing where you think an email would do, the ramifications are bigger than that.
In the meantime, sounds like you have an idea to needle your Senators and/or Congressman about updating the ADA. Seems like the rare bit of legislation where the business lobby might be onboard with helping the little guy instead of fighting it tooth and nail.
But the solution isn’t to invalidate testers as a legal concept, that’s what you’re not getting.
Maybe because I’m not saying that should happen?
I’m saying there needs to be a process (or at least a single step) between checking random websites and suing small businesses…
I don’t know why people aren’t getting that, but I get the feeling continuing to explain isn’t going to help
Get out your checkbook, hotels. Daddy Thomas needs a new yacht
It’s strange reading about this. Once upon a time when I did insurance for hotels and motels there was a disabled lawyer who would file claims for hotels being out of ADA compliance.
He would travel all over and stay at random hotels in their handicap accessible room and proceed to measure everything. Door frame widths, toilet heights, diameter of the handlebars in the shower, the exact angle of the zero entry showers, height difference between outside and inside of the door. Everything.
Then he would fax us these 50pg+ claims requesting compensation for everything that wasn’t exactly in compliance. Usually this was after attempting to shakedown the owner/manager of the hotel. We would file the claim with the company and send the info to the agent telling them to talk with their client and get the compliance issues fixed.
After a while we started to also get claims where hotels would refuse him service because they knew who he was. The agents were warning their clients about him.
Far as I know the companies never paid a dime and just referred him to the ADA and denied the claims. They never said it outright but they would have preferred the hotels just binned the claims in lieu of filing them but understood why they didn’t.
