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Prenda's Old Copyright Trolls Are Suing People Again
New submitter Hokan writes: Paul Hansmeier and John Steele, formerly of Prenda, are suing again. Each have started nonprofits, in Minnesota and Illinois, claiming to defend disabled people, and they are suing small businesses for ADA violations. You may recall that a District Court judge issued sanctions against Prenda for their attempts to file copyright suits against a broad swath of internet users. Their new practices take a similar tack: sue a small business and generously offer to collect a settlement somewhat lower than the amount it would cost to to make changes to their establishment. A new group is fighting back by creating "an access audit for local businesses, allowing them to develop a plan to fix ADA issues and potentially to ward off litigation."
Unfortunately, what they're doing is (well, at least technically) legal, so disbarment is not much of an option. :(
Now a hit man or two on the other hand...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Given that they're all probably not disabled, I'm wondering what grounds they have to sue in the first place. But that's why they offer a "settlement" that's less than the cost to defend the suit, so the case never sees the inside of a courtroom. In effect, though, they're using the legal system to extort money out of people and depending on the particulars, that may qualify under RICO statutes. In theory, they might actually be breaking the law.
A friend of mine used to own a business in CA, and his place got stung by a lawyer for a faceless handicapped person who demanded $10,000 in fees because the slope for a ramp was just a hair off the 1:12 (one foot for every inch drop), the door closer was "too heavy" (even though there was a push button to open it), and some other tiny details, such as not having a handicapped shower open to the public.
He paid the fees, then got stung again a year later because even though he had plenty of handicapped parking, there was an issue about at least two handcapped vans have to be able to open their ramps out at the same time... and he only had one handicapped spot with 4-6 feet to the side of it for that. So, the lawyer was demanding another 100 C-notes.
He closed up shop, and now has an antique shop in rural Texas, and making far better cash there.
Even for people who aren't disabled at all.
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If you pass sledgehammer legislation like the ADA, common sense behavior gets replaced with lawyering and bad things happen. And the people who passed the legislation in the first place say that their intentions were good, blame lawyers and blame the people who opposed the legislation in the first place, and finally call for more legislation to fix the problems that the first legislation caused.
This is the result:
https://regulatorystudies.colu...
In most cases making the changes costs MUCH less than a lawyer. Last I heard that average cost for bringing places up to compliance was less than a thousand bucks.
In some cases where they did modifications that contractors told them were in compliance (but weren't) the business can make THEM pay/do the necessary upgrades.
A local hospital had that issue, they were told their new parking lot was in compliance, but it wasn't. The company that did the lot had to fix it for them.
I bet some of these business owners think it costs more than it actually does to fix compliance issues because they don't have good information. Advocacy groups for disabled folks have been doing accessibility Audits...for FREE, for years.
It is malicious prosecution. They're setting settlement lower than cost, meaning they're not confident they can win a high-cost lawsuit. If they ever initiate prosecution, it's straight malicious prosecution; holding the threat and strategically avoiding prosecution is coercion and legal racketeering, possibly criminal directly under the RICO act, supported by pattern behavior which indicates that they believe their activities constitute malicious prosecution.
In other words: they're generating circumstantial evidence enough to demonstrate malicious intent and abuse of the legal system in court. A good prosecuting lawyer can raise a lawsuit here and argue, legally, that these people are intentionally avoiding entanglement in an actual lawsuit, and so believe themselves to be pursuing a criminal action, and are avoiding that action but using the threat as leverage for racketeering--they are attempting to extort a broad base of victims for money through illegal abuse of the courts.
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Unlike a copyright claim that only has one potential plaintiff, EVERY disabled person in America is a potential plaintiff, as well as your state's Attorney General and the US Attorney General.
Plus, once you've been sued, you can no longer claim ignorance if someone else sues you over the same issue later.
The only proper response is to say "thank you for informing us of the problem" and if there is an actual violation, fix it or find some legal work-around (You have excess bathrooms that aren't ADA-compliant? Close them down. Is there a way to apply for a waiver? Apply. Etc. etc.). But do not pay the dane-geld or you will never get rid of the "Dane".
Oh, and yes, these guys should be disbarred for offering to settle a claim when they know good and well they cannot speak for all potential plaintiffs AND they know good and well that if a settlement is reached, it will at least temporarily defeat the purpose and intent of the law.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Our org got hit with an ADA lawsuit recently. Our group's focus is on the web side of the lawsuit, although it encompasses many other aspects. One problem is that there are no hard-and-fast rules for what an "ADA-compliant" website is.
For one, the visual-impaired assisting "reading" software is all different. Each brand reads HTML/CSS/JavaScript differently. In theory they shouldn't need to read JavaScript-generated content, but in practice they sometimes do. And building a website without reliance on JavaScript can be really tricky and limiting. If we need to accommodate all brands of reading software, we are truly F'd and might as well file bankruptcy now.
And whether an image is merely "decorative" or "informative" is fuzzy and subject to interpretation. We are starting to toss images altogether so that we don't have that risk. But our web content is growing bland, making us "look" bad to normal readers.
And we have boatloads of content that needs to be redone.
Where's the Tums! I should sue the ADA lawyers for not being "stomach friendly". Indigestion is a disability.
Table-ized A.I.
The problem is often the requirements are difficult or near impossible to Implement, hunse why these guys use this to make money. It is a law designed to force people to fail, because it is too overreaching. There is a wide area of disabilities that the ADA covers. So chances are you may be missing some, or implemented incorrectly. That Ramp may be too much of a slope... However if you go any further it could disrupt traffic, or be a tripping hazard. Paying the fine, is sometimes cheaper and less handle then trying to change it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This sort of abuse is rampant with the ADA. It's designed to be abused because it allows private parties to sue in a weird not quite Qui Tam type lawsuit to get people to fix up their buildings. In fact, there are disabled people who make a living by parasitically going from store to store suing the Hell out of small businesses like this.
Is greater accessibility good? Yeah, but it should be brought about through tax credits and government officials initiating action. The money recovered should go into coffers to fund tax credits for businesses that want/need help complying, not lining some disabled, lawyer-loving parasite's wallet or writing a private attorney's paycheck.
I would imagine that most lawyers that file legitimate ADA lawsuits aren't disabled. They file them on behalf of someone who is. From the article:
Hansmeier registered the Disability Support Alliance in Minnesota in July 2014 and listed himself as the nonprofit's agent. Its members, all of whom live with a disability, include Wong, of Minneapolis, and three Marshall residents.
He's finding disabled people who get paid to complain, creating the "legitimacy" of the ADA complaint. According to the article, Minnesota in their infinite wisdom made it possible for a plaintiff to file criminal misdemeanor charges against someone for ADA violations with penalties up to 90 days in jail and up to a $1000 fine.
The goal should always be about accessibility to all, not making money through settlements because of inconvenience. Only the most egregious cases of non-compliance should result in any criminal charges, and even then it shouldn't be done on the behalf of the filing plaintiff.
I remember reading a case, I think it was in Reader's Digest, where a Lawyer was 'touring' through small towns, then suing their main streets(more precisely, all the businesses on said main street) for ADA violations, doing much the same as presented in this article.
Despite being in a wheelchair, I believe he did end up being disbarred from the practice. What happened to him is that he did it enough that the towns found each other, formed a group, and basically caught the dude lying. As a lawyer representing himself, what could be considered 'mistakes' added up to him not doing 'due diligence'.
For example, he sued a hardware store for not having a wheelchair ramp. Yet said hardware store had had such a ramp for decades before he came by. Once this was noticed, they started going through his claims, collated from the various lawsuits, and started noting up discrepancies. For example, him suing a store for not being accessible inside - when the store had been closed when he supposedly visited due to illness by the owner/operator. Basically, they figured out that he stayed in the hotel for a couple days, then sued everybody on the street, without having actually attempted to patronize their business. A number of businesses actually had accommodations for him - he would have simply had to ask, which is very much allowed under the ADA.
I don't read AC A human right
The technical word for this is Barratry and is a debarring offense.
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