A Northern District of California judge recently dismissed an Americans with Disabilities Act case against the parent company of a Comfort Inn & Suites located near the San Francisco International Airport.
According to Hospitalitynet, the law firm Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell (JMBM) LLP was successful in getting a case dismissed filed on behalf of Brian Whitaker who alleged that OCI did not have enough information in its online description of accessible features, in violation of the ADA’s reservation rule.
JDSupra reported that hotels have been pretty successful in thwarting lawsuits filed on behalf of Whitaker by the San Diego-based Center for Disability Access and its law firm Potter Handy, LLP.
Whitaker has filed roughly 2,000 ADA-related lawsuits over the past two years, according to Hospitalitynet, and the hotel industry was not his only target.
The San Mateo Daily Journal reported that Whitaker and the law firm also filed a similar case against a local restaurant.
Attorney Dennis Price with Potter Handy, LLP told the newspaper that, "Whitaker’s work has made his communities materially more compliant.”
Martin H. Orlick, a partner with JMBM LLP, said the recent dismissal of the lawsuit against the parent of Comfort Inn & Suites shows that hotels, for the most part, are in compliance with ADA regulations and the reservation rule in particular.
“I think the message is in the Northern District, in California, the allegations of violations of the reservation rule largely have been favorable to those hotel owners and operators who have taken steps to comply with section 302E of the ADA,” he told the Northern California Record.
Orlick added that it was important that hotel websites provide sufficient information about the accessible features of their property “whether in the form of photographs or descriptive materials so that someone with a disability can independently figure out whether the hotel works for them.”
He also said people can inquire about accessible features by calling a hotel and speaking with a hotel manager, and while he did not want to name Whitaker and Potter Handy, LLP specifically, he mentioned that the law firm was well-known in the hotel industry, along with lawyers specializing in ADA compliance.
“These cases are largely premeditated,” he said. “It’s not necessarily people who intended to stay at the hundreds of hotels that were sued. These lawsuits isolated to a few serial plaintiffs and their law firm.”
Orlick added that ADA compliance cases were also surging in Maryland, Illinois, Virginia and New York and urged owners of hotels to be proactive.
“As a hotel owner you have an obligation to provide as much information as you can about the accessible features of your property,” Orlick said. “There were probably 100 or more 302E lawsuits that were filed by one law firm, and they were filing them several a day and that slowed down tremendously because they lost 90% to 95% of the cases.”
He added that cases where "serial plaintiffs" have been successful were related to websites that were not in compliance and not any major hotel chain in the sector.
“Work with an ADA lawyer who knows what the requirements are and knows how the court has been interpreting those requirements because it’s just not simply reading the standard on coming up with a solution,” Orlick said. “It’s more complex than that. It takes an evaluation of the property itself and what accessible features you do and don’t have.”
Orlick added that there was one case in California where the hotel said accessible paths were not feasible because the property was located on the side of a hill.
“And because they disclosed that, the court granted a motion to dismiss the case,” he said.