ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Great Caesar’s Ghost edition.

By in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Mootness, ADA Web Access, Title II Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

bust of Julius CaesarTexas Bar Top 10 Logo“Beware the Ides of March” was what the prophet warned Caesar according to Shakespeare. It didn’t go well for him, but the latest batch of ADA and FHA decisions are something of a mixed bag. Before getting to that news though I want to make sure everyone who wants one has a copy of my white paper on HUD’s new guidance on service and assistance animals. If you are interested just email me. You will be added as a subscriber to this blog and I’ll email a copy of the paper. But now on to the news.

Standing and intent to return – the Strojnik factor

It is elementary that an ADA plaintiff must establish some likelihood of a future injury in order to have standing. Strojnik v. 1530 Main LP, 2020 WL 981031 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 28, 2020) is one of a small number of Texas cases addressing this issue. Judge Brown’s analysis is worth reading because it looks at the 5th Circuit authorities and explains why the “deterrent effect” doctrine is not sufficient to give a plaintiff standing in the absence of any intent to return. The “deterrent effect” doctrine is, in fact, a mis-named and mis-used substitute for intent to return. A plaintiff who never intended to go back cannot have been deterred from going back by some condition at the defendants’ place of business. Sloppy language and slopping thinking in the Nnth Circuit are the origin and support of the ADA litigation industry.

Strojnik suffered a similar fate in Strojnik v. IA Lodging Napa First LLC, 2020 WL 906722, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2020) although the Court found his pleadings to be more comprehensively inadequate. The opinion ends on the heartening note that the Court will have more to say about Strojnik’s litigation tactics in an upcoming order on the defendant’s motion to declare Strojnik a vexatious litigant.

ADA Pleading

Strojnik v. 1530 Main LP also adopts a helpful pleading standard for a showing of present injury. Instead of pleading specific ADA violations Strojnik simply attached photographs of allegedly non-compliant features of the hotel to his Complaint. Without an explanation of how each pictured condition affected his disability the Court found the Complaint was inadequate.

Schutza v. Union City Investments LLC, 2020 WL 905605 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2020) is a must-read opinion for anyone faced with generic ADA pleadings. The complaint, like most of those from serial filers, alleged the existence of access barriers without saying just what was wrong. That was not enough for the Court:

But were the dining tables too high? Were they too low? Where were the paths of travel? How were they inaccessible? Plaintiff leaves everyone guessing. As Plaintiff’s allegations are only “naked assertions devoid of further factual enhancement, and the Court need not accept “legal conclusions” as true, the Court finds Plaintiff’s allegations for this element of an ADA claim insufficient.

The Court grants leave to amend, and the nature of the problems is such that they can be cured by amendment if the problems really exist, but forcing the plaintiff to do the work of identifying ADA barriers to access with some specificity will at least test the legitimacy of the claims.

ADA Title II and sovereign immunity

As a starting note, readers interested in this issue should read William Goren’s recent blog on the 11th Circuit’s decision concerning the State of Florida. Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 874042 (E.D. La. Feb. 21, 2020) looks at the issue in the context of a state funded stadium. The discussion is worth reading, but the plaintiff’s decision to concede sovereign immunity for damage claims makes the holding  somewhat unimportant. For more about this case see the discussion below on the merits of the ADA claims in the same lawsuit.

The cost of default

In California small businesses continue to find that the cost of default in a typical serial plaintiff lawsuit is cheaper than any amount of defense. In Acosta v. Martinez et al, 2020 WL 1026890 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 3, 2020) the defendant was ordered fix ADA violations and pay $4000 in statutory damages plus $1,823 dollars in attorneys’ fees. The usual warning applies of course – if the cost of repair is excessive a defense based on the readily achievable standard doesn’t make sense.

The defendant didn’t do quite so well in Arroyo v. Melendez, 2020 WL 869211 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 21, 2020), but no statutory damages were awarded because the court declined to exercise jurisdiction over Unruh Act claims, so total monetary award was only $3245.75.

The defendant lost even more in Johnson v. Johnson, 2020 WL 901517 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2020), with an award of $4492 in fees and costs. A default strategy needs to take into account the individual court to guess at what the cost will be.

The same strategy can be even cheaper outside of California. In Hillesheim v. SNA LLC, 2020 WL 1077570 (D. Neb. Mar. 6, 2020) the plaintiff recovered only $2718.40 in attorneys’ fees and costs. If the injunctive relief was inevitable the result was a bargain.
Rutherford v. JJ’s Mkt. and Liquor, 2020 WL 883220 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 24, 2020) reached a similar result, with an award totaling $2591.00 in fees and costs. The Court had previously refused to exercise jurisdiction over Unruh Act claims, so there were no damages.

Halfway moot

You can absolutely moot an ADA claim by shutting down the public accommodation and selling the property on which it operated according to Johnson v. Baird Lands, Inc., 2020 WL 978629 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 28, 2020). That does not, however, eliminate a damage claim under California’s Unruh Act. Johnson recovered $4000 in statutory damages, but nothing more.

All the way moot

I have categorized Harty v. Nyack Motor Hotel Inc., 2020 WL 1140783 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 9, 2020) as a mootness case because that is the most obvious basis for the court’s holding. The defendant simply took down their allegedly inaccessible website, an act sufficiently dramatic to moot any claim about it. The rest of the opinion catalogues the pro se plaintiff’s other failures, which were many. It is worth reading because some of the failures are common in complaints from more sophisticated plaintiffs.

Pleadings, franchises, and claims based on admitted ignorance.

In Chapman v. CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. 2020 WL 1230130 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 12, 2020) the plaintiff managed all the usual standing hurdles only to be tripped up by the fact that ignorance is not a reasonable basis for a lawsuit. The plaintiff sued the purported owner of a large number of franchised restaurants. The court agreed that she had alleged both injury and intent to return, but found that she had not connected the defendant to her injuries because she did not plead the necessary ownership and control. Equally important, her class allegations rested on the existence of a policy that failed to make the restaurants accessible or, in the alternative, the lack of an effective ADA policy. The court was unwilling to accept mutually inconsistent alternatives as a sufficient basis for a lawsuit since the plaintiff was clearly only speculating. The case was dismissed without prejudice and the plaintiff can in theory plead a claim that can withstand a motion to dismiss; whether she will be able in fact to do so remains to be seen.

Underline those hyperlinks if you want your arbitration clause to stick

Theodore v. Uber Techs., Inc., 2020 WL 1027917 (D. Mass. Mar. 3, 2020) is one of several cases concerning Uber’s arbitration agreement with its customers, and deals with the broader issue of “clickwrap” agreements.* It is most interesting because it contains a detailed analysis of much of the relevant law and draws a very specific distinction between hyperlinks that are underlined and those that are merely in a different color. Comparing a 2nd Circuit case in which a clickwrap agreement was found to give sufficient notice with a 1st Circuit case in which it was not the Court concludes that because the relevant hyperlinks were not underlined they were insufficiently conspicuous. I think the lesson is clear – app and website operators need to say to hell with sleek design and make sure it isn’t possible for a user to fail to notice a clickwrap agreement. Aesthetics are nice but it is unlikely a good looking interface drives enough profits to make up for the legal expense of litigating a case instead of arbitrating it.

Group homes, zoning and the Fair Housing Act

Valencia v. City of Springfield, Illinois, 2020 WL 1035229 (C.D. Ill. Mar. 3, 2020) is the latest in a series of decisions in the long-running dispute between two group homes, the Department of Justice and the City of Springfield. This decision is critical because based on its holding many municipal zoning ordinances are intentionally discriminatory on their face. The City’s zoning ordinance distinguished between group homes in which unrelated individuals resided together and “family” residences in which up to five unrelated individuals could live together. Group homes were subject to minimum spacing requirements while “family” homes were not. Thus, a group home with five unrelated residents would be treated differently than a “family” home with the same number of unrelated residents. The Court had no trouble finding the ordinance was discriminatory on its face.
That finding could have an impact on many municipal zoning ordinances because in the last twenty to thirty years municipalities have adopted zoning plans intended to permit group homes for the disabled in residential districts while continuing to regulate such homes. A typical ordinance will do what the City of Springfield ordinance did – define a permitted group home as one providing some service to unrelated individuals, define a “family” as a number of related individuals plus some number of unrelated individuals, and then impose limits on the group home whether or not it has fewer unrelated individuals than a “family.” The Court’s finding that such limits are intentionally discriminatory is a warning to municipalities to review their zoning practices for provisions that were originally intended to comply with the FHA but, because their consequences are discriminatory, in fact violate the FHA.

Stadium line of sight litigation

Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 874046 (E.D. La. Feb. 21, 2020) and the companion opinion Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 874039 (E.D. La. Feb. 21, 2020) are too long to summarize, but there are a couple of key holdings. First, the Court rejects the idea that limitations on an ADA claim based on a failure to make altered areas accessible runs from the first date the plaintiff visits the altered premises. The Court finds that limitations runs from the last visit, not the first. Second, the Court rejects a claim that the plaintiff’s standing is limited to the particular seats he occupies, finding that he faces at least a threat of discrimination from all discriminatory conditions. Beyond this the opinion demonstrates that line of sight litigation is complicated because stadiums are complicated and what can be done is therefore subject to reasonable disagreement. The same is true of comparing lines of sight for wheelchair bound spectators and standing spectators and even deciding which of many entities involved in owning and operating the stadium may be liable. Unless settled these cases seem doomed to go to trial.

And more on alterations

In Lewis v. Phan, 2020 WL 885751 (W.D. Wash. Feb. 24, 2020) the Court ultimately denied a summary judgment on the central claim of discrimination, but the discussion of alteration claims is a reminder that clear thinking is required for businesses planning on a renovation of some kind. The court points out that when a building is “altered” there are two obligations; to make the altered area accessible to the “maximum extent feasible” and, if the altered area is a primary function area, to create an accessible route to it from the building exterior, subject to the limit that the cost not be “disproportionate.” If the altered area includes the route from the building exterior to the interior then it is part of the “maximum extent feasible” standard. If not, it is subject to the “disproportionate” cost standard.  The parties in this lawsuit failed to tell the Court which standard applied, with the result that they were sent away to think further about it.

City sidewalks as services

Hamer v. City of Trinidad, 2020 WL 869818 (D. Colo. Feb. 21, 2020) is a lawsuit that has been around awhile, with a trip to the 10th Circuit and the Supreme Court along the way.** In this latest decision the principal substantive ruling is that sidewalks constitute a “service” of the City that are therefore required to be accessible under the ADA. The Court also takes up limitations again in light of the Tenth Circuit’s holding, but only to conclude that fact issues preclude summary judgment.
Am. Council of Blind of Metro. Chicago v. City of Chicago, 2020 WL 1139243 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 9, 2020) is one of those cases that reaches what seems to be a momentous result without the least discussion. In contrast to Hamer v. City of Trinidad, which included extensive discussions in the District Court and Court of Appeals concerning how and why to apply the ADA’s statute of limitations to city services in the form of sidewalks, American Council of the Blind disposes of the issue with a single sentence: “As noted above, however, plaintiffs are not seeking damages for those (or any other) events, but instead seek to remedy dangerous conditions they claim are ongoing.”  This decision seems likely to provide the tail end of a string cite about continuing violations, but nothing more.

Is an auto repair shop a public accommodation?

Pomponio v. Brand Motors, LLC, 2020 WL 922450 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2020) is one of those rare cases in which the defendant claims it is not a public accommodation. The Court granted a motion to dismiss based on the lack of fact allegations to support the claim it was a public accommodation, but granted leave to amend. It is frankly hard to imagine an auto repair shop that is not a public accommodation, at least with respect to the area in which customers are dealt with, but it is imaginable that an appointment only shop that never allowed customers on the premises could avoid ADA coverage.

ADA Website lawsuits – long arm jurisdiction

Mercer v. Rampart Hotel Ventures, LLC, 2020 WL 882007 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 24, 2020) is the District Court’s confirmation of the magistrate’s recommendation I discussed in ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Hearts & Flowers Edition. That discussion covers the same material.
* See my earlier Quick Hits blog, Quick Hits or just search “Uber” above to find all my blogs on ride-sharing issues. For arbitration, see “Browsewrap could tame the ADA website litigation monster.” and other blogs with the word “arbitration.”

** See my earlier blogs, Another ADA case heads to the Supreme Court – City of Trinidad v Hamer, and Eternal liability under ADA Title – It’s what you don’t do that matters, as well as the mention in Quick Hits – He’s making a list and checking it twice, which will provide a link to William Goren’s discussion of the topic.

 


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Endless liability under the FHA – another court weighs in

By in Accessibility Litigation Trends, FHA, FHA design/build litigation, Statute of Limitations Tags: , , , , , ,

clock face spiraling into eternityI wrote back in 2014 about the problem of endless FHA liability for design/build defects* and have covered other statute of limitations cases as well** but a recent decision from the Southern District of New York is worth noting for both its summary of existing law and the fundamental error it embraces.

In Fair Hous. J. Ctr., Inc. v. JDS Dev. LLC, 2020 WL 1126556 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 9, 2020) the plaintiff, an advocacy group, dispatched testers to several of the defendant’s developments where they discovered various failures to meet the design/build requirements in 42 U.S.C. §3604(f)(3)(C). The defendant moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s lawsuit on the grounds that the statute of limitations on design/build claims had run. The court disagreed.

The defendants advanced two theories concerning when limitations would run for design/build claims. The Ninth Circuit has ruled that limitations begins to run when the final certificate of occupancy for a multi-family housing development is issued because that represents the point at which the design and construction is over. See, Garcia v. Brockway, 526 F.3d 456 (9th Cir. 2008). The Sixth Circuit in contrast held that limitations began to run with the sale or lease of the last unit in such a development because for each unit the sale or lease was the discriminatory act. See,  Fair Housing Council, Inc. v. Village of Olde St. Andrews, Inc., 210 Fed. Appx. 469 (6th Cir. 2006).† In either case limitations had run because all the units had been sold or least more than two years before the suit was filed.

The Court rejected both theories, finding instead that while failing to design and build multifamily dwellings is a discriminatory act, it is not by itself a “discriminatory housing practice” actionable under Section 3613(a) of the FHA. A discriminatory housing practice, it held, is one of the things specifically made unlawful in Section 3604. The relevants parts of Section 3604 make it unlawful to “discriminate in the sale or rental” of a dwelling because of the handicap of the buyer or an associated person (§3604(f)(1)) or “discriminate against a person. . .” (§3604(f)(2)). The Court’s reading is that unlawful discrimination necessarily involves a disabled person; thus, design/build failures are not actionable until they ripen into unlawful discrimination because they harm a disabled person.

The Court bolstered its view of the statutory language with an examination of general tort principles, the purpose of the FHA in general and agency interpretations of the statute. The general tort principle invoked is that a claim accrues for limitations purposes when the plaintiff suffers damages. The Court reasoned that for a disabled individual the damage is suffered when the individual is denied a dwelling they can use. The general purpose argument is simply that the longer it is possible to sue the owners the more owners will be sued, and that is what the FHA is all about. Finally, the Court gives “substantial deference” to HUD’s statements about limitations in the Fair Housing Act Design Manual and its internal operations handbook.‡

The Court is not alone in its view of when limitations runs for design/build claims, but it overlooks an important consequence of that view. If failing to design and build multifamily housing in compliance with the statute is not in and of itself an unlawful act, then a plaintiff must prove they were injured by one of the two unlawful acts specified in the statute; that is, discrimination in the sale and rental of dwelling (§3604(f)(1)) or discrimination in the terms, conditions, or privileges of a sale or rental or in the provision of services in connection with that sale or rental. (§3604(f)(2)). We know from the Supreme Court’s holding in Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 373, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982) that Section 3604(f)(1) does not apply to cases brought by testers because there is no sale or rental of a dwelling.º It is equally apparent that a tester who does not intend to buy or rent a dwelling cannot suffer discrimination in the terms, conditions or privileges of a sale or rental, as required for a claim under Section 3604(f)(2). Simply put, a tester suffers no harm from the existence of design/build failures because the tester never intends to use the dwelling in which they occur.

The consequence of testers having no standing because they have never suffered an injury is that the organization that sent them can’t rely on a limitations period based on the tester’s visit. The Defendant argued that the injury suffered by the advocacy group – frustration of its fair housing mission – began as soon as the units were for sale or lease even if the advocacy group didn’t know it. The Court rejected this argument because the “legal violation that starts the limitations period” was unlawful discrimination against the testers. However, based on the Court’s interpretation of the statute there was no “legal violation” at all because in the absence of a bona fide intent to buy or rent and the absence of any actual purchase or rental no unlawful discriminatory practice ever occurred.

Congress included a statute of limitations in Section 3613(a) because it did not want owners, developers and managers of apartments and condominiums to have eternal liability in private lawsuits. The Court itself observes that “no legislation pursues its purposes at all costs.”¹ Having limitations run from the date a single bona fide buyer or renter suffers an injury is arguably consistent with the language and purpose of the statute. Bootstrapping organizational standing on top of non-existent tester standing to reach a result that allows lawsuits until eternity is not. If Congress wanted eternal liability for private lawsuits it would have left out the limitations period altogether as it did for actions for injunctive relief brought by HUD and the Department of Justice.

*  See, Endless liability under the Fair Housing Act — and let’s make it personal

** See,  The statute of limitations for FHA design/build cases – a guide for the perplexed.

† This is how the District Court interpreted the holding Fair Housing Justice Center. I find the Sixth Circuit’s holding is either more nuanced or simply more confusing than this simple rule suggests.

‡ The Court relies for this deference on United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U.S. 218, 228, 121 S.Ct. 2164, 150 L.Ed.2d 292 (2001), a case that does not support the Court’s position in any way. Substantial deference is owed an agency’s interpretation of a statute when it is within the realm in which it regulates. The two year limitations period in Section 3613(a) applies only to private causes of action and is therefore outside HUD’s concerns as a regulator.

º The Supreme Court rejected tester claims brought under Section 3604(a), which is the race discrimination analog of Section 3604(f)(1), because such claims require a bona fide offer to sell or purchase.

¹ Citing Rodriguez v. United States, 480 U.S. 522, 525–26, 107 S.Ct. 1391, 94 L.Ed.2d 533 (1987).


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Yes, the ADA is confusing, especially when it comes to websites

By in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Web Access, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: , , ,

Dazed and Confused Movie PosterI was in the midst of preparing a presentation on ADA website obligations for the Texas Mortgage Bankers Association when I got an email from Jason Richmond of Anttix, Inc., a website design and accessibility consultant. He asked me to clarify, for the benefit of some of his clients, whether the ADA applied to the websites of businesses with fewer than 15 employees. The short answer is: yes, it does. It isn’t surprising though that many businesses and even lawyers are confused about this.

Two different parts of the ADA, Titles I and III, apply to most private businesses. Title I applies to businesses as employers and deals with the rights of disabled employees. Title III applies to businesses that are open to the public and deals with the rights of disabled members of the public. Therein lies the confusion.

Title I only applies to businesses with 15 or more employees. Here’s the statutory tracking for the relevant parts of Title I:

  • 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a) forbids discrimination by “covered entities.”
  • 42 U.S.C. § 12111(2) defines “covered entities” to include employers and
  • 42 U.S.C. § 12111(5)(a) defines “employers” as businesses with 15 or more employees.

Thus, only employers with 15 or more employees are covered by Title I.

Coverage of Title III, on the other hand, goes like this:

  • 42 U.S.C. §12182 forbids discrimination by persons who own, lease or operate a “public accommodation.”
  • 42 U.S.C. §12181(7) defines a “public accommodation” as any business that falls into one of ten categories of business that typically deal with the public. There is no mention of the number of employees.

Thus, Title III covers any business open to the public, no matter how few employees it has.

An additional source of confusion comes from the fact that not all businesses are public accommodations. A factory, for example, is not usually a public accommodation because it isn’t open to the public. If a factory has 15 or more employees it must to comply with Title I, but if it doesn’t sell to the public it probably does not have any obligation to comply with Title III.

That “probably” can also be a source of confusion. Many courts say that every website that can be accessed by the public is a public accommodation covered by Title III of the ADA. A factory that has no store open to the public might still be covered by Title III if it has a website open to the public. Not all courts agree and the law is developing rapidly, but the safest bet for any business with a website is to treat the website as a public accommodation that must be accessible to those with disabilities under Title III of the ADA.

So, whether a business has only one employee or a thousand, if it is open to the public either in a building or on the internet it is probably covered by Title III of the ADA, and that means it needs an accessible website unless it has a lot of spare cash and a taste for protracted litigation.*

* In which case please call me – I’d love to carry on the fight for you.

 


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ADA and FHA Quick Hits – Hearts & Flowers Edition

By in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: , , , , , , ,

Happy Valentine’s Day. The last few weeks have brought the usual assortment of cases, some of more interest than others. I’ll lead with a personal jurisdiction case that has the potential to be important for website accessibility lawsuits.

ADA Website Litigation – an important personal jurisdiction case.

Mercer v. Rampart Hotel Ventures, LLC, 2020 WL 236843 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 16, 2020) presents a familiar fact pattern. The disabled plaintiff purportedly visited the hotel website for a hotel in Louisiana. She was unable to find information about accessible rooms and therefore exited without trying to book a room. She then sued based on a violation of the ADA, whose regulations require such information, and under New York Law. The Court’s discussion of long arm jurisdiction should be immensely helpful to out-of-state defendants in website cases. The Court first rejected long arm jurisdiction based on a transaction between the plaintiff and defendant because defendant never tried to book a room. It then rejected an argument that other transactions between the hotel and citizens of New York were relevant, finding they were unconnected to the plaintiff’s claims. The next round of briefing in this case will be crucial, for the plaintiff was granted leave to amend to add a claim for personal jurisdiction based on the commission of tortious acts in New York. Courts commonly analogize ADA Title III claims when choosing a statute of limitations: “because most discrimination claims involve “injury to the individual rights of a person” and are analogous to personal injury tort claims. Meriwether v. ABC Training/Safety Council Texas Gulf Coast Chapter, 2016 WL 8711726, at *2 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 24, 2016), report and recommendation adopted, 2016 WL 8711279 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 18, 2016), but to say an ADA claim is analogous to a tort is not the same as saying it is a tort. Indeed, if it were, ADA violations could give rise to a state law action in tort. If the court rejects that notion that an ADA violation constitutes “tortious conduct” under the New York Long Arm Statute it may well become impossible for serial plaintiffs to fuel the ADA litigation machine with casual visits to websites of out-of-state hotels and other businesses.

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Legal Justice Advocates – a New Kids on the Block Update

By in Accessibility Litigation Trends Tags: , ,

New Kids on the Block Group

This is an update to my original post about Legal Justice Advocates,  New Kids.  My thanks to Stephen McWilliam of Florida State Mortgage Group, Inc. for helping me keep up to date.

First, it appears that an entity called Equal Access Action Network, Inc. filed a number of small claims cases in Miami against various companies on August 30 of last year; that is, a few months before Legal Justice Advocates began its demand letter scheme. They were filed by Yvette Harrell as an attorney for Legal Justice Associates. Like Victims Awareness, Inc. the Equal Access Action Network, Inc. is a recently created Delaware corporation. It was incorporated by a service that conceals the identity of the real incorporators and has no website that I can find but does seem to have a Twitter account, though one without much in the way of tweets.  EAAN has filed some lawsuits but it isn’t clear how effectively they are being pursued. Cases against Ace Hardware and Pet Supermarket were dismissed for EAAN’s failure to meet court deadlines. A case against Steinmart filed in federal court was dismissed with prejudice, which usually signals a settlement of some kind. EAAN seems to associated with Anneth Lezcano, a serial filer of ADA lawsuits, and Jack Kang, who is in the same business. Each of them has also filed lawsuits without EAAN using other lawyers associated with Legal Justice Advocates. It is a fairly far ranging enterprise, though the total number of lawsuits filed is rather small in comparison to other serial filers.

Second, a complaint has been filed with the Florida State Bar against Jerome Ramsaran, the attorney who seems to have taken over from Harrell after the Florida Bar began investigating her. I do not know the status of that complaint.

Finally, the sending of demand letters continues, with an increasing number sent to businesses in states other than Florida and Texas it appears. I still have not found any lawsuits filed on behalf of Victims Awareness, Inc. in the federal courts.


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