Thank you Smartasscripple. I say “unscrupulous lawyers for everyone!”
Ervin: How Can I Get In On Those ‘Unscrupulous’ ADA Lawsuits?
(SmartAss Cripple Blog)
June 8, 2012
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS– [Excerpt provided by Inclusion Daily Express] The horror stories have been going around for years. I’m sure you’ve heard them. The New York Times was ranting about it a few weeks back.
It all starts with unscrupulous lawyers. They recruit cripples to be plaintiffs in lawsuits suing small businesses for being inaccessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Maybe the business has no ramp or too steep of a ramp or a counter or shelf that’s too high. Then the case gets settled. The lawyers collect fees and then they pay the cripple a fee for their time.
The Times says a couple lawyers have filed more than 300 suits in the last three years in New York alone. And some cripples have built a cottage industry out of being repeat plaintiffs.
When I read about my fellow cripples teaming up with unscrupulous lawyers to behave in this manner, it really pisses me off. Why can’t I find an unscrupulous lawyer to team up with me? I mean, I live in Chicago, dammit. You can’t swing a dead cat by the tail around here without hitting an unscrupulous lawyer.
Entire article:
Unscrupulous
http://smartasscripple.blogspot.com/2012/06/unscrupulous.html
Related:
Disabilities Act Prompts Flood of Suits Some Cite as Unfair (New York Times)
http://tinyurl.com/ide0608127a
Planet of the Blind 
Ironically, we were the victims of this a couple of years ago. My husband owns a very small business — a cafe and take-out place. We also have a severely disabled teenage daughter. Our place was built out to all ADA standards, coupled with the sensitivity we naturally have given our daughter. Nonetheless, a woman came in, measured the parking space as being an inch too narrow and had some difficulty getting past a chair on the side of the building. She successfully sued our business (despite being the plaintiff in six other cases in the city), and we were fined nearly ten thousand dollars. I am deeply resentful of this kind of exploitation — it shook both of us up to the core.
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