[conspire] Contact DOJ and tell them to blow it out their ass

Tue Mar 21 22:17:39 PDT 2017

If I was in charge, an ADA issue would start like a "fix-it" ticket for your car.  Yes your tail light is burned out and yes that is against the law, but if you get it fixed in a reasonable time, the fine is negligible. 

      From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
 To: conspire at linuxmafia.com 
 Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 11:19 PM
 Subject: Re: [conspire] Contact DOJ and tell them to blow it out their ass

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Unfortunately, instead of constructive discussions too many people
> shouting and no one is listening. I am reminded of a lawyer in SF who
> was going to small restaurants and businesses. If he found a restroom
> sign that wasn’t in the proper size and type font, he would file a
> lawsuit. He justified his actions on wanting to make the world better
> under ADA. He also got paid thousands for each suit. 

This also happened in 2015 just downhill from my house, at the Dutch Goose.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/07/08/dutch-goose-reopens-after-forced-upgrades/

Dutch Goose reopens after forced upgrades
By KEVIN KELLY | kkelly at bayareanewsgroup.com |
July 8, 2015 at 3:28 pm

  The owner of a popular, iconic Menlo Park restaurant is crediting his
  landlord with the eatery’s survival in the wake of a costly lawsuit.

  Dutch Goose was sued in July 2013 for violating the Americans with
  Disabilities Act. The suit ultimately cost the restaurant $2 million,
  much of that amount for a series of ADA upgrades as well as a $64,000
  settlement payment to the plaintiff last year, according to Dutch Goose
  owner Greg Stern. The 3567 Alameda de las Pulgas location is owned by
  the Beltramo family.

  “Insurance doesn’t cover any of this,” Stern told The Daily News on July
  2.

  He credits John Beltramo for pitching in for the upgrades.

  “I couldn’t pull off the improvements alone. … We would have had to shut
  the doors, for sure,” Stern said. “I’m just fortunate enough that our
  landlord wanted to see the Goose continue.”

  Dutch Goose closed for repairs April 19 and reopened May 22. The
  restaurant added ADA-accessible parking stalls and ramps, an
  ADA-compliant bathroom, wheelchair-accessible seating, an elevator, and
  a bar that complies with ADA height requirements.

  In his lawsuit, San Jose resident Gerardo Hernandez, a paraplegic,
  alleged that on May 15, 2013, he parked in one of two designated
  handicapped parking spaces in front of the restaurant, which he stated
  were “dangerously configured and constructed,” so that he was only able
  to exit his vehicle with the assistance of others. Hernandez further
  alleged that the path to the front entrance was “inaccessibly narrow
  with a dangerous drop off to the side,” there was no seating accessible
  to his wheelchair, and he was unable to use the men’s restroom.

  Stern countered that the restaurant complied with county codes when he
  was hit with the lawsuit, but that didn’t protect the business.

  “We just assumed because we went through the permit process with them
  (that) we thought we were doing everything by the book,” Stern said.
  “When we built the deckline (bar) outside … you have to allot 50 percent
  of the building costs to the ADA, which we did, but it’s an older
  building. You just can’t get them all (and) the county, quite frankly,
  is not well versed in ADA.”

  He warns other business owners in the area who might be susceptible to
  ADA lawsuits to “arm yourself with information.”

  “You really need to have a professional to evaluate the rules … because
  (they) are always changing,” Stern said. “I would start by getting a
  cast inspection.”

  Dutch Goose is one of at least seven businesses in the Bay Area sued by
  Hernandez for alleged ADA violations since 2012.

  Lawsuits over disability access have a storied history in California. In
  2012, for instance, a West Sacramento resident was accused of filing
  more than 1,000 ADA-related claims against small businesses and local
  governments. In April, Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Modesto,
  introduced legislation aimed at helping state businesses comply with
  disability access laws and prevent “shake-down, predatory ADA lawsuits.”

  “(An) attorney said … these guys go on Google Earth and look for whether
  there’s ramps out front,” Stern said.
  [...]

Hernandez got $64,000 as part of the settlement.
http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020140514908/HERNANDEZ%20v.%20DUTCH%20GOOSE,%20INC.

2014 Hernandez ADA suit against Canada College:
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/6501121/Hernandez_v_San_Mateo_County_Community_College_District_Canada_College

2016 Hernandez ADA suit against Tapioca Express:
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/19291135/Geraldo_Hernandez_v_Tapioca_Express,_Inc,_NO_VN,_INC_dba_Tapioca_Express_8,_et_al

2015 Hernandez ADA suit against Canyon Inn:
http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20FDCO%2020150709A85/HERNANDEZ%20v.%20CANYON%20INN

2012 Hernandez ADA suit against Final Score Sports Bar:
https://casetext.com/case/hernandez-v-final-score-sports-bar-5

2014 Hernandez ADA suit against Round Table Pizza:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2014cv05067/282275

2014 Hernandez ADA suit against Taqueria El Grullense:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/ca9/14-16069

2013 Hernandez ADA suit against Ross Stores:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/5:2013cv05956/273153

2013 Hernandez ADA suit against American Dairy Queen Corporation:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2013cv02445/266703

2012 Hernandez ADA suit against Dehoff Enterprises, Inc:
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2012cv01467/252922

Court records show that Hernandez got settlement payoffs ranging from
$10,000 to $53,000 in his various suits, according to local paper _The
Almanac_:
http://www.almanacnews.com/print/story/2015/03/04/dutch-goose-racing-to-finish-ada-improvements

Another gentleman, Scott Johnson of Carmichael, owner of Disabled Access
Prevents Injury, Inc., is said to have filed _thousands_ of ADA lawsuits
across Northern California and reaped millions of dollars in settlement
fees and attorney fees:
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/04/10/serial-ada-lawsuit-filer-striking-bay-area/

There are efforts to ameliorate this situation with legal reforms,
usually by permitting businesses a 90- or 120-day grace period to fix 
alleged problems before civil litigation can be filed:
http://www.modbee.com/news/article139543763.html
http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20160425/its-time-for-california-to-curb-enthusiasm-for-ada-lawsuit-abuse
http://norcalrecord.com/stories/510739270-california-is-ground-zero-for-ada-lawsuit-abuse

> Closed captioning. Virtually all broadcast TV has closed captioning.
> How difficult /expensive would it be to add CC to the lectures?
> Admittedly CC sometimes is pretty bad with uncommon words.  Prof. Smith
> has beenteaching math for some years by working out examples on the
> whiteboard. Now there a blind student enrolls. How is that supposed
> to work?

Part of the point about the recent DoJ enforcement letter to University
of California is that it concerned a set of tens of thousands of
instructional videos that are _not_ used in educational curricula, but
instead were hosted online for public benefit.

Here's how my acquaintance Beth (who works for the Minnesota library
system) put it, on the Skeptic mailing list:

---<snip>---

It's not just these lectures, it's bigger than that. It's everything 
that every institution wants to digitize in order to make it available 
to the public. Thing is, that's the essential first step. It's not 
perfect, but those items are one hell of a lot more accessible than 
they were before they were digitized. Yes, we want to make them fully 
accessible to everyone. But if we're no longer allowed to digitize 
now, caption (hopefully) later, then a lot fewer things are going to 
get digitized. The funding only goes so far.

I spent part of last week at a conference, attending sessions mainly 
on digitizing. The accessibility issue came up over and over again. We 
all want that. We don't just want to digitize audio recordings, we 
want to create transcripts, too. We don't just want to put up videos, 
we want them captioned, too. But there's only so much money.

Obviously, when it's an educational requirement, accessibility becomes 
a priority. But when it comes to content that is not required for 
classwork, but freely provided for the benefit of all, it seems a bit 
hard to be penalized for not spending still more money to make it 
wholly accessible to everyone for no charge.

---<snip>---

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