The Supreme Court will consider the strength of the Americans with Disabilities Act on Wednesday when it hears a dispute over whether a self-appointed “tester” of the civil rights law has the right to sue hotels over alleged violations of its provisions.
How the justices rule could have a significant impact on the practical effectiveness of the landmark legislation, which aims to shield individuals with disabilities from discrimination in public accommodations and a host of other settings.
At the center of the dispute is Deborah Laufer, a disability rights advocate who has brought hundreds of lawsuits against hotels she says are not in compliance with ADA rules requiring hotels to disclose information about how accessible they are to individuals with disabilities.
Laufer, a Florida resident who uses a wheelchair and has a visual impairment, doesn’t intend to visit the hotels she’s suing. Instead, the complaints are made in an effort to force the hotels to update their websites to be in compliance with the law. Legal experts say the strategy, known as “testing,” is necessary to ensure enforcement of the historic law.
Be careful with this reasoning. The Supreme Court decision will apply to all cases if testers, malicious or good faith. The specific case is relevant, obviously, but that’s not all that should be considered.
Yeah, but I get the feeling that the current Supreme Court is going to rule against the tester due to legal standing. I can easily see that tester cases require actual injury.
Yeah, but jumping immediately to lawsuits isn’t the best way to handle this.
The best way would be after a business is notified they have X amount of time to correct the issue. Then if they they don’t, they’re open to lawsuits.
The ADA gets enforced, and small business don’t have to pay out an insane amount of lawyers fees because their website was missing a blurb
The only people “harmed” by that would be lawyers, especially the ones fraudulently billing hours in these cases. And any plaintiffs taking illegal kickbacks from their lawyers.
It seems pretty common sense to me, but what do I know? I’m just a disabled veteran who actually has to deal with this stuff.