What Does Litigation for Accessbility Non-Compliance Mean?

It means $$MONEY$$!

1.   Very, very few cases will be from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation, and what these cases mean for you is money spent to correct your non-compliance items.  The interest of the DOJ is to get compliance to PL101-336, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA):  “PL" stands for Public Law, 101 stands for one hundred and first congress, and 336 is the number attached to the law.

2.  A case filed by an attorney for a handicapped individual or advocacy group means $$MONEY$$ in the form of extortion.  Most of these cases are settled out of court with a payment of between $50,000.00 – $100,000.00 to the attorney and the advocate, with some promise by the owner to make corrections to the facility to bring the non-compliant items into compliance.

In the opinion of ACCESS, most owners think that with the payment of the attorney they are done, when in fact they are just beginning!  There is nothing to prevent a second, third, fourth and so on party from filing the same lawsuit.  To prevent such lawsuits, the owner needs a program to bring the property into compliance, which will require documentation of money spent and on which non-compliant item, as well as money to be allocated to other non-compliant items for each year, until the property has reached full compliance.

Let us know what your thoughts are on the above post.  You can comment here or on our FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Access-Technologies-Services-Inc/268659564730.  Or you can contact us by email at hfalstad@accessts.net or call us at (702) 649-7575.  We look forward to hearing from you.

The above are opinions of Hank Falstad, AIA, Managing Senior Associate of Access Technologies Services, Inc. (ACCESS).  See our web site for additional information:  www.accessts.net.