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

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> Could Gerardo Hernandez be challenged regarding his standing?  What
> brought him to the Dutch Goose?  Does he live in the neighborhood? 
> Does he pass through Menlo Park from time to time?  Is there some
> reason why he might be a repeat customer if it were not for the ADA
> "issues"?  Or was he deliberately looking for an opportunity to file a
> suit primarily because of the potential for the monetary benefit to
> himself?

Plainly, the latter.  However, nothing about ADA or the surrounding
traditions of tort law require a civil plaintiff under Title III to be 
pure of heart.  ;->

A plaintiff has standing in a civil complaint if he/she can show
_personal_ harm (meaning being wrongfully deprived of something the
person is entitled to) -- period.  Because ADA Title III says that
covered public accomodations must 'reasonably accomodate' members of
enumerated classes of handicaps, when paraplegic Gerardo Hernandez
rolled his wheelchair into the old Dutch Goose and found that there were
inadequate ramps in the front, unnavigable stairs between the back door
and the rear porch area, a bathroom that failed to meet some of the
published standards for accomodating wheelchairs, etc., he automatically
gained standing to sue Dutch Goose's owner under Federal law.

And that is true even if he admitted in court that the _only_ reason he
went to West Menlo Park and to that particular dive was that he'd heard
they were easy pickings for an ADA lawsuit and could gain him a quick
$64,000 damages award.

There was an old quotation from that famous legal windbag Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Jr.:  'This is a court of law, young man, not a court of
justice.'  Nice and fair aren't really in it, y'see.