Good news for those attacked by CityVision’s FHA complaints

January 16, 2017 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA FHA Litigation General, FHA, FHA Emotional Support Animals Tags: CityVision, dialing for dollars, Fair Housing Advocates, Gary Lacefield, Gratus Partners, Patrick Coleman

CityVision Services, a Texas based company in the business of filing HUD complaints, recently chose to withdraw a complaint rather than face investigation of its operations by HUD’s Region VII office. The details remain confidential (they involve one of our clients) but the broad picture of how this happened can help other victims of CityVision complaints deal with them.

In this particular case CityVision filed two complaints; one on behalf of an individual claiming disability discrimination and one on its own behalf. Like all the complaints CityVision files on its own behalf it contained a short and completely misleading statement of its history and operations. It claimed, for example, to have been established 23 years ago to file complaints on behalf of victims of discrimination, when in fact the present incarnation of CityVision was created in 2015 in order to file complaints on its own behalf. More

Abusive ADA serial litigation – bad plaintiffs don’t excuse ADA violations

January 9, 2017 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, First Fix Then Fight

A December 30 opinion from the Eastern District of New York should remind businesses that the obligation to comply with the ADA does not depend on the moral quality of the plaintiff. While judges do not like plaintiffs and lawyers who merely exploit the ADA for profit, they also understand that the law is the law.

In Adams v. 724 Franklin Ave. Corp., 2016 WL 7495804 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 30, 2016) the defendant’s counsel, aware of past cases in which the district court had shown a certain hostility to serial litigants, decided that instead of defending the ADA lawsuit against his client he would offer a small settlement and then dare the plaintiff to take a default judgment. The court characterized his correspondence with plaintiff’s counsel in these words: More

ADA reform: neither complaints nor pre-suit notice will solve the problem.

December 30, 2016 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Litigation Procedure, Internet Accessibility Tags: ADA Reform, ADA serial litigation, Anderson Cooper, drive-by lawsuits

Sixty Minutes and Forbes have now weighed in on the serial litigation crisis that threatens small businesses sued for often innocent or trivial ADA violations. Congress is gearing up once again to require pre-suit notice, a change demanded by businesses and opposed by disability rights groups. Meanwhile, the pace of ADA filings has only increased, with hyper-aggressive lawyers moving from dozens to hundreds of lawsuits a month, many now concerning web access. Federal judges have responded in some cases with sanctions that amounted in one case to more than $100,000.

How did we get to here? Why has a law to help the disabled turned into a litigation industry? The answer is more complicated than unethical lawyers or profiteering plaintiffs. At the root of the litigation crisis are four things: More

Dialing for Dollars – City Vision and Fair Housing Advocates seek greener pastures

December 13, 2016 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, FHA, FHA Emotional Support Animals, FHA Reasonable Accommodation, Landlord-tenant Tags: City Vision, CityVision, dialing for dollars, Fair Housing Advocates, Gary Lacefield, Patrick Coleman

In the last several weeks we’ve gotten calls from attorneys and industry groups in several states about Patrick Coleman’s company, “Fair Housing Advocates,” filing significant numbers of HUD multiple complaints in Louisiana, Indiana and elsewhere. There is no easy way to know the full geographic extent of Fair Housing Advocates’ activities because the dialing for dollars business requires nothing but a phone, a list of apartment complexes, and a willingness to prevaricate about one’s motives and intent. City Vision Services, a related business, has also re-appeared with a complaint filed in Nebraska. More

Countdown to closed captioning – do the regulations matter?

December 11, 2016 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Litigation Procedure, ADA regulations, ADA rulemaking, Movies Tags: Closed Captioning, Department of Justice, movie theaters, regulations

Hard on the heels of the news about a newly filed lawsuit demanding closed captioning and audio descriptions* the Department of Justice has announced its rules concerning accessibility for movie theaters**, which will become effective sometime in the next few months. This is clearly good news for movie theaters who want certainty about their legal obligations, but will it put an end to the pending lawsuit, or prevent future claims? The disturbing answer is likely “no.” More