Recently, I read a case out of the Western District of Pennsylvania which I found absolutely fascinating. In this particular case, the court dealt with three issues. First, does the plaintiff have a disability at all? Second, does “regarded as” even apply outside of the title I context? Finally, was the plaintiff a direct threat
Americans with Disabilities Act
ADA compliance as a nondelegable duty
People who are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) have an obligation to comply with its myriad requirements. The question becomes can that obligation be delegated to someone else? That is, let’s say you are a major hotel and you are building out/renovating the hotel in a big way. You hire a firm…
Air carrier access act: only one place to go
In a previous blog entry, the Air Carrier Access Act was discussed in terms of whether it allowed for a private cause of action where an airline violated the regulations that carry out that act. However, that blog entry did not answer two questions. First, assuming a private cause of action for violation of that…
Key Issues in Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act
Title III of the ADA requires that any new buildings, after 1992, be built in accordance with strict architectural guidelines that mandate accessibility for persons with disabilities. Also, any renovations to buildings, whether the building is built before 1992 or otherwise must be made in a way so that the renovations are accessible to persons…
Title III: it may be cheaper to fix it
Under title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the only remedy the plaintiff can get is injunctive relief and attorneys fees. The court may also fine violators up to $50,000 for a first violation and up to $110,000 for each subsequent violation. Attorney fees are only available if the person prevails. What does it…
Sovereign immunity principles outside of sovereign immunity claims and the importance of self-evaluation and transition plans
In a previous blog entry, I talked about the principle of sovereign immunity as it applies to persons with disabilities. As mentioned in that blog entry, a state, including an arm of the state, is not going to be forced to waive its sovereign immunity with respect to disability discrimination in employment matters.…
LSAT and Title III discrimination
Anybody that wants to go to law school must take the LSAT, law school admission test sponsored by the law school admission Council (LSAC) . The LSAT is a standardized test consisting of 100 multiple-choice questions ( Binno v. American Bar Association, 2012 WL 4513617, *1 (E.D. Mich. September 30, 2012)), divided into five…
Persons with disabilities and peremptory challenges
Few cases today actually go to trial. However, the ones that do go to trial involving juries necessarily mean that a jury has to be picked first. Jurors aren’t so much picked as they are eliminated. With respect to jury selection, there are three kinds of jury challenges. First, there is a peremptory challenge. Peremptory…
Sovereign immunity and persons with disabilities
Sovereign immunity is enormously complicated. What it is, is a principle from which the founding fathers took from England that says a sovereign cannot be sued for damages without its consent. This principal goes way back, and also can be found in the 11th amendment to the United States Constitution. The language of the 11th…
Lessons learned
Some cases are excellent for providing a roadmap on what to do, other cases are good for getting new lessons so that you can take preventive steps to not run down that path. The particular case here is one of the latter. In Peters v. University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 2012 WL 3878601…