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Comment by eadmund | Hacker News Reader

This is what is known in the common law as barratry: lawsuits filed not for justice but for profit.

There’s a guy in NYC who does this and shuts small businesses down that can’t afford to make the required changes. It’s usually a small restaurant with a bathroom down narrow stairs that would cost a fortune to renovate to modern code. It feels like an exploitation of the law.

There’s another guy recently who has been trying to shakedown small businesses by threatening a huge lawsuit if they don’t pay him 50k to go away. He uses a wheelchair but it’s a prop as he was found out to be able to walk.

Anything new, sure it should be accessible. Old building’s where it would cost a fortune? It’s not practical.

>He uses a wheelchair but it’s a prop as he was found out to be able to walk.

I don't know anything about this guy specifically but I just want to point out many wheelchair users have some ability to stand and walk. Merely having the ability to walk doesn't necessarily mean someone's wheelchair is a "prop" or unnecessary.

https://www.realsocialskills.org/blog/respecting-wheelchair-...

https://www.dailydot.com/irl/ambulatory-wheelchair-users-exi...

Yup, it sounds similar to an ABC7 investigation over another man who sues over 100 businesses over ADA violations. https://abc7.com/723665/

Do any of these businesses contest the facts of the case? I'm unaware of any that do, but I don't follow ADA cases very closely. So is the outrage is more that someone is advocating for compliance with the law, by bringing civil suits... as required to enforce the law? Did this "serial plantiff" hit a quota limit or something?

I understand the empathy with the business, but I don't understand the animus towards the disabled person.

The disabled person works with a serial litigator to sue. They might win $4k in damages. If they do, serial litigator is able to recover attorney's fees which can top $200k. Serial litigator can demand a $50k settlement rather than you spending $100k defending and risking being $304k out of pocket in total.

Thus, it's possible to extract settlements far beyond any actual damages incurred by the disabled person. This is what makes it a shakedown operation.

But the business isn’t in compliance, right? The “shakedown” doesn’t work if the building is compliant, right?

Why 'but'? It's not like any of that money goes toward making the business compliant.

Well that's not the point of damages. Compensatory damages are paid the the person that suffered in compensation of the suffering caused. Punitive damages are punishment. Remedial action isn't always ordered (You can always roll the dice on enforcement again, and probably get even worse punitive damages for being a repeat offender.), but remedial action is always separate, and it's not up the court to decide how much you're going to spend on compliance. That's your job.

The whole point of qui tam and pseudo-qui tam statutes like the ADA (with regimes of minimum damages, recovery of legal fees, etc) -- is to encourage private parties to do enforcement that will compel the desired behavior.

Well I would have thought the pain of having to pay damages would have been enough to encourage remedial action to avoid a similar situation in the future. Especially since the damages would be even higher the second time since it would be flagrant violation.

In this case, the remedial action is not economically possible, and the business is closing the location instead.

A court would likely agree that there was no violation-- but at how much cost of legal fees? And the potential downside of the court disagreeing is even greater.

It's no-win for someone facing one of these dubious actions. You can: A) fight and incur huge costs coupled with unreasonable amounts of risk, B) capitulate and settle and try to remediate, or C) just fold entirely.

The business is likely in compliance. The appropriate language of the ADA is:

> (iv) a failure to remove architectural barriers, and communication barriers that are structural in nature, in existing facilities, and transportation barriers in existing vehicles and rail passenger cars used by an establishment for transporting individuals (not including barriers that can only be removed through the retrofitting of vehicles or rail passenger cars by the installation of a hydraulic or other lift), where such removal is readily achievable;

Is the removal of the barrier of the steps in a 100 year old building "readily achievable" if it takes $100k in construction? Probably not.

But if you don't do it, and someone sues you-- the lawyer suing you has a chance of a $200k payday; the disabled plaintiff may get $4k; you will have to spend $100k to defend; and if you lose, you'll have to pay the $100k in construction or face the next person doing this too. The potential downside in litigating is too high to bear the risk-- even if you're right you're incurring a massive cost.

This is a big issue with qui tam statutes where private claimants can bring actions to enforce the policy. The upside is they often encourage enthusiastic enforcement at low cost to the state... the downside is they often encourage very enthusiastic and unfair enforcement at high cost to society.

It's kind of insane that attorney fees are allowed to go that high (and higher). Really just predatory and bad when you think about it. In a lot of lawsuits, the plaintiff's attorney can essentially set whatever rate they want and then force the defendant to pay a cost that's far above any damages allowed by the law.

The RICO laws permit private citizens suing other private citizens where it can be demonstrated there was a conspiracy.

If the conspiracy is for barratry, and this can be demonstrated, then the case should be able to move forward.

RICO means suing directly the conspirators, so there is no option for any sort of organizational protections or "corporate veil" meaning all of the personal assets will be up for grabs.

I suspect this would send a lot of fear into the conspirators because a case like the one linked here will likely draw more sympathy than the plight of a handicapped person being blocked from accessing some more common venue (grocery store, hospital, etc.). This is very important because as a lawyer-acquaintance would put it, the verdict is ultimately "what 12 idiots decide."

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