Quick Hits – Memorial Day edition

May 27, 2019 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - Hotels, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees Tags: ADA defense, ADA Website Litigation, FHA Defense, Oscar Rosales, Pacific Trial Group, Peter Strojnik, Scott Ferrell, Scott Johnson, unruh act

This Memorial Day we are once again firing up the grill with hundred dollar bills to celebrate how the ADA its current form encourages litigation that makes lawyers rich without any correspondening improvement in meaningful access for the disabled. The first case presents the unappetizing picture of a single claimed lack of access generating parallel state and federal proceedings as defendants and plaintiffs maneuver for a procedural advantage. The last explores the exploitation of California law by plaintiffs who can use internet accessibility claims to bring the whole world into their favorable local courts. In between we will see some courts pushing back, though only in the most egregious cases. More

ADA and the Internet – 9th Circuit overrules Robles v Dominos

January 15, 2019 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA FHA Litigation General, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web Tags: ADA defense, ADA Website Litigation, Domino's Pizza v Robles, primary jurisdiction, WCAG 2.0

Frowning Pizza This afternoon the Ninth Circuit overruled the district court decision in Robles v. Domino’s Pizza LLC. Robles has always been an outlier. It is one of only a couple of cases holding that the absence of DOJ regulations made it unfair to prosecute claims against website operators under the ADA. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, adding additional weight to the lower court decisions finding that the lack of regulations does not raise due process concerns and confirming that in website accessibility litigation justice is simply not available to small businesses. More

Fourth Circuit decision in ADA web access case is a victory for all defendants.

January 4, 2019 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Web Access Tags: ADA defense, ADA internet litigation, ADA website accessibility, ADA Website Litigation, Griffin v Credit Union

Griffin v. Dept. of Lab. Fed. Credit Union, 18-1312, 2019 WL 80704 (4th Cir. Jan. 3, 2019), decided earlier today, the Fourth Circuit gave the defendant credit union a victory that on its face is meaningful only for credit unions and other membership organizations. However, although its conclusive denial of standing for the plaintiff was stated in the narrowest terms, the reasoning implies a view of standing with much broader implications. Standing requires that a plaintiff have have suffered a past injury that was concrete and particularized, and face the imminent threat of future harm. The Court concluded Griffen met none of these requirements because he was ineligible as a matter of law to use the services of the defendant credit union. More

Haynes v Hooters – hard lessons about ADA website litigation

July 8, 2018 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Litigation Procedure, ADA Web Access, Internet, Internet Accessibility Tags: ADA consent decree, ADA internet litigation, ADA litigation defense, ADA Website Litigation, Haynes v Hooters, WCAG 2.0

This is not the owl of Athens, a symbol of wisdom associated with the goddess Athena. Nonetheless, there is some wisdom to be gained by taking a look at Haynes v. Hooters of Am., LLC, 17-13170, 2018 WL 3030840 (11th Cir. June 19, 2018). The case has already been the subject of many articles in the pay-to-play legal press and an excellent blog by William Goren.* The main lesson to be learned from Haynes v. Hooters is one that we’ve known a long time – a private settlement agreement will not moot a new claim by a new plaintiff. Only remediation will do that. There is, however, a deeper and more disturbing message. In website accessibility claims meaningful claims of mootness may well be impossible to achieve.

To understand why we start with the point of the mootness defense. Mootness as an abstract legal concept simply means that there is no case or controversy for the judge to decide because there is no meaningful relief that the plaintiff can be granted. The mootness defense failed in Haynes because the earlier settlement on which the defense was based had an expiration date and because even before it expired a new plaintiff could not enforce it. Thus the new plaintiff could be awarded meaningful relief in the form of an injunction requiring Hooters to do what it promised in the earlier settlement. Because that relief was meaningful the case was not moot. QED as the logicians say. More

Effective defense of ADA website lawsuits – is there such a thing?

June 23, 2018 By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA, ADA - serial litigation, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Litigation Procedure, ADA Mootness, ADA Web Access, Internet Accessibility Tags: Accessibility Litigation, ADA Congress, ADA Defense Lawyer, ADA Website Litigation, website accessibility

A client of mine recently got a long letter from a defense firm informing it that it had been sued under the ADA and extolling its own expertise in defending website accessibility lawsuits. The letter laid out in some detail the defenses they were prepared to assert in a motion to dismiss, with a description of a possible standing argument, an the assertion that the ADA did not cover websites, and a due process claim based on the lack of regulations. More