Just a quick note about some upcoming CLE opportunities, not all of them accessibility oriented. If you are wondering about the photo at left, it’s for something a little different. I’ll be presenting a one-hour webinar “Write Your Brief Like a Country Song: The Universal Rules of Effective Communication” for the University of Texas CLE program on January 24. You can find all the details at this link: “Write your Brief Like a Country Song.” On February 11 at 1:00 p.m. ET I’ll be collaborating with William Goren (www.williamgoren.com) to present “The Internet and ADA Compliance” for the American Bar Association. You can find registration details at this link: “The Internet and ADA Compliance.” Last but not least, this Sunday morning, January 19, I’ll be presenting a three hour overview of the ADA and FHA accessibility rules and regulations to the Society of Exchange Counselors in Fort Worth. For more about the Society you can check out their website at “Society of Exchange Counselors“
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“Legal Justice Advocates” the new kids on the block for website access demands.
There’s a new kid on the block in the world of serial accessibility demands.** It’s not a boy band, its “Legal Justice Advocates.” They’ve been sending demand letters to apartment owners, mortgage lenders and real estate agents claiming to represent an outfit called “Victims Awareness, Inc.” which, they claim, is a “national not-for-profit” with disabled members “throughout the nation.” Victims Awareness, Inc., they claim, uses experienced testers (who are not claimed to be disabled) to check on the accessibility of websites. The firm then sends a demand requiring remediation of unspecified defects and money for the lawyers. After seeing a few of these and getting calls from lawyers who saw more I thought it would be worthwhile to take a longer look at the firm and its supposed client. More
ADA and FHA Blogathon – tortoise and the hare edition
Being slow but steady the tortoise, as we all know, won the race. The picture on the left tells you the strategy I ended up using. In any case the news is current as of November 14, the last day I checked for new ADA and FHA decisions. There’s plenty of interest, as usual.
A pre-emptive strike on website accessibility succeeds.
The plaintiff in Expensify, Inc. v. White, 2019 WL 5295064 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 18, 2019) sought to take matters into its own hands and local court by suing a pair of serial website filers for a declaratory judgment that its website was not in violations of the ADA. The defendants almost immediately agreed to waive their claims, presumably because they did not want to litigate without the home field advantage they command in the Western District of Pennsylvania. The plaintiff was not content and tried to keep the case alive, but the Court found the waivers mooted its claims. The key finding is that there was a dispute justifying the complaint for declaratory relief. It is only a district court decision, but Defendants who receive a demand letter without a lawsuit should consider this kind of pre-emptive strike as a good way to avoid an unfriendly jurisdiction. More
Hunt quoted on ADA website litigation in the Monterey Herald
Yes, I’m briefly tooting my own horn because James Herrera of the Monterey Herald interviewed and quoted me in his article “Making Business Websites ADA Compliant.” He did a good job of explaining the situation that businesses find themselves in, so the article is worth reading for reasons beyond searching for my name, which is of course the first thing I did.
Hunt quoted in Law 360 article on ADA issues for sports arenas
I do like to toot my own horn from time to time. I was among several ADA experts quoted in an article by Zachery Zagger on stadium line-of-sight problems under the ADA that was published by Law 360 on July 3, 2019. These cases figure prominently in the Auer deference issues for Title III of the ADA that I hope to blog on soon. See, MLB Parks Face Costly Fixes As ADA Suits Target Sightlines.