Disability Access Litigation

While not everyone enjoys going to court, both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the California Unruh Civil Rights Act (Unruh) provide strong protections for disabled people. If a business or other public facility breaks the law, both the ADA and Unruh specifically authorize private individuals to file lawsuits to correct the wrongdoing.

Civil rights lawsuits are incredibly powerful because judges are empowered to force businesses to comply with access requirements. In most cases, the court will also award the disabled person money damages as well as attorney's fees.

To qualify for a lawsuit, the plaintiff (the person filing the lawsuit) must meet certain requirements. First, the plaintiff must be disabled. Second, the plaintiff must have encountered an illegal accessibility barrier or policy that denied the plaintiff full and complete access to the business. Third, the plaintiff must have suffered from difficulty, discomfort, or embarrassment.

If a plaintiff meets all three requirements above, they have a lawsuit. In our law practice, we are looking for cases where the business outright denies access to a disabled person utilizing a service animal. This can include forcing the service animal to wait outside or asking the disabled person to leave altogether.

In most instances, we find that business owners need to be educated about the ADA so that they do not break the law in the future. With a lawsuit, the business cannot ignore the problem and they are forced to comply with the law. For what it's worth, sometimes only a lawsuit can do the trick and gain compliance with disability laws. That is why we are here.