Once again – as in past Memorial Day editions – I’m firing up the grill with hundred dollar bills in honor of the money wasted on lawyers, who are the only ones who really benefit from most ADA and FHA litigation. There are, however, some cases dealing addressing important substantive issues, and few in which Courts seem ready to turn the ADA and FHA into laws to help people instead of laws to make lawyers rich. More
Tester standing under the ADA – Getting it wrong, getting it right, and an interesting but irrelevant analysis.
Three cases in the last thirty days look at ADA standing and reach different conclusions about what the Constitution and the ADA require. For victims of serial litigation and for courts interested in the coherent application of the text of the ADA and similar statutes these are crucial cases.² More
Hunt among experts featured in Usablenet celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day
I apologize for not having posted a new blog for several weeks, but I have been busy on other projects, including the video posted at Industry experts explain what digital accessibility awareness means to them for Usablenet’s celebration of Global Accessibility of Awareness Day. All the videos are worthwhile, but if you don’t have time to listen, my comments in a nutshell are simple. A business is aware of digital accessibility if it understands that those with disabilities can an do use digital resources like websites and mobile applications, that accessibility gives businesses access to and a competitive advantage in a significant market, and that if designed in from the beginning accessibility need not be cost prohibitive. I also point out that typical serial website lawsuits are a very poor way to create accessibility awareness in the business community because even though thousands of lawsuits are filed, they represent a tiny fraction (no more than 3 in ten thousand) of the lawsuits filed against businesses every year and will therefore never have a lasting impact on businesses with many other concerns and obligations. DOJ and disability advocates should be looking for positive ways to engage with the business community, not supporting efforts that accomplish little more than making a few lawyers rich.
Hunt to Speak at the 3rd Annual Digital Accessibility Legal Summit
On October 7-8 I’ll be joining Jason Taylor of Usablenet and Jeremy Horlick of ADA Site Compliance at American University’s Digital Accessibility Legal Summit in a panel discussion of accessibility overlays, widgets and plug-ins titled “The Great Accessibility Overlays Battle.” You can find the complete program at www.accessibility.legal. As you know, the use of widgets and overlays has generated some controversy, with makers of this software claiming they can create an accessible website and every credible consultant claiming they cannot. You can read my blogs about his subject at Is there a silver bullet for ADA website accessibility? Sorry, but the answer is no. and Thanks for the shout-out Lainey – a website plug-in followup. Those looking for an interesting technical analysis of the differences between various products will find one by Jason Taylor at https://blog.usablenet.com/inclusive-accessibility-crushes-widgets-and-overlays. Any attorney with clients who own a website – and that should be most of us – will find the entire Summit usefuls. The need for digital accessibility and the risk when it is absent colors every kind of business and consumer transaction, so keeping up to date is critical.
Same old wine in a brand new bottle – Pursuit of Justice, Inc. and the FHA
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 was disbarred. Now another member of the group, Jerome Ramsaran, has created a new supposed disability rights group, Pursuit of Respect, Inc., to pursue 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