I had forgotten that this classic song was from Loggins & Messina until I looked it up after getting an old demand letter packaged by a new firm. I have blogged before about Legal Justice Advocates, a front for a group of attorneys who sent hundreds of demand letters making unsustainable claims about website accessibility under the Fair Housing Act.¹ Their business was taken over by the Portell Law Group² when the original members of LJA dropped out of sight and one of them, Ilya Torchinsky, lost his license to practice. Now another member of the group, Jerome Ramsaran, has incorporated a new supposed disability rights group, Pursuit of Respect, Inc., which is pursuing the old business of making demands on website owners in different real estate related businesses. I know this because I was recently provided a demand letter sent by a lawyer in Chicago who also practices in Florida, the original home of Legal Justice Advocates. J. Kevin Benjamin is the lawyer sending demands on behalf of Pursuit of Respect, Inc. Unlike the claims from Legal Justice Advocates and the Portell Law Group Benjamin’s claims include ADA allegations, and unlike the LJA and Portell Claims the letters from Benjamin give the recipient fourteen days to correct the supposed website violations before there is a threat of a money demand. Of course the demands do not include any details about the supposed problems, and fourteen days is an impossible period for website remediation under the best circumstances. I expect the soft touch is intended to get an equally soft response that lets Benjamin solicit some kind of payment, and once the fourteen days are up there will probably be a stronger money demand. More
Internet Accessibility
Quick Hits – April Fools Edition
If foolishness were limited to one day a year this blog would be well overdue, but a glance at the news – legal, political or other, shows that every day in April can be April fools day, so I make no apologies for the delay in getting this out.
The difference between accommodation and modification under the ADA and FHA
Any discussion of S.W. Fair Hous. Council v. WG Chandler Villas SH LLC, 2021 WL 1087200 (D. Ariz. Mar. 22, 2021) must begin with a vocabulary note. The thing called “modification” under the ADA is called “accommodation” under the FHA and the thing called “modification” under the FHA doesn’t really exist under Title III of the ADA. The vocabulary matters because under the FHA a “modification” is a change to a physical feature that the tenant must pay for while an “accommodation” is a change in policy that the landlord must pay for on the theory that the costs will usually be nominal. In WG Chandler Villas the plaintiff, a fair housing organization that was testing local apartment communities for their responsiveness to the needs of the deaf, asserted that installation of a flashing doorbell was an accommodation rather than a modification, thus making the cost the landlord’s responsibility. The Court held that how to characterize such a request depended on what kinds of services the landlord already provided:
The Court finds that a flashing doorbell is a reasonable accommodation under the ADA—not merely a modification—in the context of Defendant’s housing facility, because one of the services that Defendant provides residents is safety checks.
Those safety checks included ringing the doorbell to see if the resident responded. Since deaf residents would not benefit from that safety check if they didn’t know the doorbell was being rung the addition of the flashing doorbell was better characterized as a change in policy about safety checks rather than a physical modification in the form of a new doorbell. This reasoning could apply to an array of services that any apartment complex might provide. If reserved parking is a service, for example, then a reserved accessible parking space would be an accommodation despite the physical changes (including using up an entire extra parking space) and their cost.² More
Happy New Years – 2020 ADA and FHA retrospective
Here’s a toast to the end of a bad year. I don’t know anyone who won’t be happy to see 2020 behind us, but it’s worth looking back at how the law of accessibility developed in the last year.
Fair Housing Act developments were bracketed by two events, one of which was scarcely noticed but could be important. In February, to considerable fanfare, HUD rolled out its new Guidance on requests for accommodation concerning animals.¹ Its many disclaimers about not being a regulation and not having any binding effect were not enough for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which opined on December 17, 2020² that the Guidance violated the Congressional Review Act because it was not submitted to Congress for approval before it took effect. It is not surprising that HUD ignored the law, but HUD often ignores both science and the law, so to the extent the Guidance reflects what HUD’s investigators will do it provides some useful information on staying out of trouble in a HUD investigation even if it isn’t helpful as a guide to complying with the FHA. More
Quick Hits – Christmas in September
The title of today’s blog recognizes the gift bestowed by Judge Nannette Brown on everyone interested in the ADA in all its many details. Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 5309962 (E.D. La. Sept. 4, 2020) is the latest of Judge Brown’s decisions concerning the dispute over stadium seating in the Superdome. Written after trial, the 64 page decision methodically dissects the law concerning concerning which standards apply to what parts of a facility after alterations, what the sight-line requirements for stadiums are under the various standards, including an exposition of the law concerning Auer deference and the effect of Kisor v. Wilke, how Title II program accessibility requirements fit into design/build standards, what kind of control is required for a person to be an “operator” of a public accommodation, when and how the “reasonable modification” requirement in Title III of the ADA applies to Title II entities, and last but not least the extent to which Title I’s “interactive process” requirement might apply to Titles II and III. The Fifth Circuit, and maybe the Supreme Court, will have the last word in this case, but if you are looking for a quick reference to almost every issue that comes up in a case involving altered facilities you can find it in this decision.¹ More
Upcoming – ADA, FHA and Country Music
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“