Upholding ADA
Who Enforces the Law?
Most people are unaware that private citizens filing complaints are the primary means of enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
These citizens do so, not out of mere self-interest, but to make the world more accessible to everyone with a disability, despite the likelihood that their character and intentions may be maligned by others.
Most people with disabilities won't risk their reputations or devote the time and energy to pursue these cases. That's why the burden of enforcement falls to only a few.
Only when a disabled person encounters barriers and insists on remediation is there any assurance that all the violations present will be adequately addressed.
Merely finding a violation does not provide sufficient grounds to pursue effective legal action. For a complaint to carry significant weight, a disabled plaintiff must experience directly the physical and psychological impact of having their right to equal access denied.
An Uphill Climb
"Successful ADA plaintiffs confer a tremendous benefit upon our society in addition to the attainment of redress for their personal injuries," wrote one federal court."The enforcement of civil rights statutes by plaintiffs as private attorney generals is an important part of the underlying policy behind the law."
Yet the business community, their attorneys, and politicians persist in painting disabled plaintiffs as troublemakers and predators. Media coverage is usually slanted against them. Defense attorneys try to define them as "vexatious litigants" in an attempt to discredit their efforts to exert their civil rights.
Federal courts have noted " . . . a troubling trend in which disability access defendants attack the motives of plaintiffs and their counsel in nearly every case brought to enforce the right to equal access guaranteed by the ADA and California statutes."
In fact, plaintiffs who file ADA lawsuits provide a service to everyone by upholding legal requirements that have been in place for more than 30 years.
The vast majority of these suits are successful because they have legal merit. Violations are a matter of fact, not conjecture.
The idea that defendants "cave in to demands" rather than face expensive court trials is inaccurate. For one thing, the so-called demands are simply that facilities open to the public comply with the law. For another, few cases ever go to trial because reasonable parties can reach a settlement before that stage is reached.
