More Shakedown Lawsuits in California

Should the purpose of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) be to make the lives of disabled people easier or to make lawyers money? It appears that trial lawyer George Louie thinks it is the latter. Recently, he threatened to sue dozens of small City businesses in Yuba City over minor ADA violations. To protect its citizens from his lawsuits, Yuba City actually paid George Louie to stay away.

While Yuba City is safe from George Louie, it is still vulnerable to frivolous lawsuits brought by other abusive trial lawyers. Cases like this make it clear that lawyers filing dozens of lawsuits don’t care if ADA violations are fixed – they just want their money!

To prevent situations like this in the future, here’s a great idea that the Sacramento Bee suggested in a recent editorial: allow disabled plaintiffs to file complaints against businesses that are out of compliance, and give the businesses a certain amount of time to fix their alleged violations. If they haven’t fixed the violations after the time period ends, then the plaintiff can sue. This solution would increase quality of life for disabled people and protect small businesses from shakedown lawsuits. The only thing it wouldn’t do is allow lawyers to make a big profit by exploiting hardworking folks!