How Bogus, BS Lawsuits foster Disdain for Lawyers and the Law, Part II

Was it, and is it, "ethical" for lawyers to team up with plaintiffs to sue small business owners, Counties, Cities, and others, en masse, making fortunes for themselves and their plaintiffs---under the guise of providing greater access for disabled individuals?  I say the answer is NO!

The Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, The Unruh Civil Rights Act, The Unfair Business Practices Act, and Accessibility to Public Places.


In 2002 I had just opened my third and fourth businesses, respectively, when I was hit with my first lawsuit as a small business owner. I was leveraged and I was vulnerable so the timing of the lawsuit, at that point in my life, could not have been worse.  The suit itself was ridiculous--it was bogus.

A disabled person, confined to a wheelchair, a person who lived in the San Francisco Bay area--500 miles away from one of my establishments in the southern California City of La Mesa-- "suddenly" felt the need to come down  and have a beer at my place.  At least that's what he claimed, anyway.

But the truth of the matter was his complaint was bogus, the basis was bogus, and it was part of a scheme to make money under the guise of expanding "access" for persons with disabilities.

This was a serial litigant that had an attorney filing cases on his behalf and they were all making money at the expense of small businesses statewide.

Now, nobody would ever argue with expanding access to public accommodations for folks with disabilities.  The problem was--I was never given a chance to fix the problem before I was sued and hit with demand letter. .    Nope.  Like that pop-song by Drake --it went 0 to 100 real quick.

Conveniently, if I agreed to play along, the suit would be dropped, the lawyer for the plaintiff would be paid, the plaintiff would be paid, and everyone would be happy....eventually I had to hire my own attorney, threaten to sue my own insurance company (Lloyds of London) to compel them to kick in


 for the settlement, and I had to make repairs to a building I didn't even own because the landlord said it was "my responsibility" under the lease.  I had to spend about $30,000.00 in legal bills and repair costs to make this suit go away.  It was a nightmare.

(Eventually this led to my good decision to sell my properties, liquor licenses, and business interests at the top of the market for top dollar in San Diego in early 2004 and move back to Pensacola--which has turned out to be a good decision in retrospect.)

I learned later this plaintiff in my suit, Chris Langer, had filed over 100 lawsuits just in San Diego County, I was only one of them.  And he had hundreds more throughout the state, and all the complaints looked like mine.  He and his lawyers were making a fortune off of these suits.  It wasn't right, and it isn't right.

Like I ended up doing, most businesses just caved and payed the bills necessary to make this go away--It was cheaper than fighting in court.  And that's what these predators counted on.

I also was unaware at the time that this same game had been attempted on small hotel in the northern California city of Carmel, just a few years earlier.  That owner fought back, fought the complaints in Court, and ended up winning.  In that instance, the hotel was owned by multi-millionaire celebrity Clint Eastwood.  He could afford to spend $500,000.00 to beat these complaints in court.  But most other small businesses did not and do not possess the resources to "pay" to win what amounts to a Pyrrhic victory.

So what does all of this have to do with Escambia County and and the Escambia County Commission?

The Americans with Disabilities Act, Discrimination, Florida Law, and Accessibility for Government Websites

I recently had a deja vu moment when I read this complaint that has been recentlyfiled by a Florida resident via a South Florida Law Firm against Escambia County.

You see, I've seen this garbage before, as I have explained earlier in this post.  Garbage.

This time around, in 2018,  the game goes like this.

This individual is visually impaired, and he "plans to become involved with Escambia County government" and he wants to "stay informed" as to the goings on in Escambia County. (Yeah right)--But he can't read the .pdf files on our web page.

Even though once he contacted our human resources director, and once a very fair accommodation was offered, this plaintiff ignored our offer to assist.

Instead, he just had his attorneys file the canned law suit complaint four months later.  And lo and behold--this same plaintiff has multiple suits filed against multiple Florida Counties and Cities over the last two-year period.

I think it's kind of like extortion.  Kid Rock might say "Same name same game not a damn thing changed"  A shakedown.

Same game, different players, different decade......Deja Vu.  I've seen this before!

Even though some counties and cities have already written the checks to make this new "website accessibility" lawsuit go away, so far as I have been told, I'm glad Escambia County is not doing this.

Nope.  We're fighting back.   In this particular instance, our attorneys have filed a very well-written and researched motion for dismissal of this garbage complaint.  I'm happy to report this.

Because if we can fight back, using just our organic staff resources, we should do this.  We should never reward this abusive, unethical behavior.

Like Clint Eastwood did in his case, I hope we can win our case too.