There is a cancer growing within the disability movement and that is why the U.S. House Representatives passed H.R. 620 and want to tear apart the ADA. The cancer are a few lawyers and PWDs that sue under ADA to fill their own pockets. This is a stain on any progress that has been made in our fight for equality. These people are cowards and know their law suits are petty, or they would confront the business owner to help solve the problem.
Their have been many times where I have been at hotel and critiqued what they called an accessible bathroom. I often, jokingly so the ADA has a magic word and it is "reasonable" accommodations. I remember, one time Wife and I used a public restroom and the door of the stall opened inward that really made it in-accessible since the door could not close with my wheelchair in the stall. We did get manger and pointed out this situation. To me, that would not be worth my time suing over and even if I did, I doubt if it would get the end result that we were in search of. For me, my resolution is to take my business else where and I have done this many times.
If the House of Reps used Drive-By and Google Lawsuits as the reason to gut the ADA the were just looking for an excuse to undo it's laws, rather then fix the problems to protect both sides. The ADA is on autopsy table, cuts to Medicaid and President Trump's new budget cuts funding for community based program for the disabled. The slippery slope in getting steeper and steeper.
Educating able-bodied people about the law and their potential violations of the law should not be the responsibility of the person with the disability. From a business’s perspective, drive-by lawsuits are seen as unfair because businesses claim that people with disabilities are not discussing violations with managers and personnel inside their establishments. But by definition drive-by lawsuits handle ADA violations outside of places of business, like in parking lots where lack of accessibility could make entering an establishment and discussing a violation unfeasible to begin with. For Google lawsuits, the 60 Minutes segment highlighted a hotel owner who was sued for not having an accessible pool. He stated the injustice of his situation by saying that: “At no point in time we ever had a customer on the property that requested it or that was even in a room that requested it.”[2] But that sentiment is part of the problem. In the age of Google, can this business owner really be surprised that no one with a disability would choose to stay in an inaccessible hotel? That does not mean that there was not a burden placed on people with disabilities who had to search extensively for an accessible place to stay. Nor should it be their burden to request that a business comply with a 27-year-old law.
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