Let’s say there were federal laws about, I don’t know, food safety. And let’s say that instead of having restaurant inspectors, the federal government decided that the best way to enforce the laws about food safety would be to allow individual restaurant customers to sue restaurants. Who would be surprised if, twenty years later, a few enterprising individuals managed to make a living suing restaurants? Who would be surprised if many restaurants didn’t comply with the food safety laws, since the odds of being sued would be kind of low?
Now suppose there were organizations whose stated purpose was to help the victims of food poisoning. Instead of working with individual restaurant customers to force restaurants into compliance with food safety laws, these organizations beg those customers to stop suing, because it might alienate the restaurant owners.
The federal laws are actually about access, and surprise! there are some individuals who make a living suing businesses into compliance. So of course that winds up being the story, instead of the massive lack of compliance with a twenty year old law. In Florida, “advocacy groups” are quoted as saying that “we’re not convinced [lawsuits are] making the community more inclusive regarding the ADA.”
In that case, “advocacy groups” should get on the Department of Justice’s case, and lobby for actual enforcement of the ADA.
Haddayr tells it like it is:
Who cares if you “turn business owners against the ADA?” I don?t want them to feel warm and fuzzy. I want them to OBEY THE LAW. Businesses will not do right by people unless they fear lawsuits. They have no motivation other than money.
I especially love how Brenda Ruehl, executive director of Self Reliance Inc., uses the word “drive-by,” too. Because suing a business owner for breaking the law is EXACTLY like driving past someone and shooting them dead!
‘Drive-By’ ADA Lawsuits Have Business Owners On Edge, disabilityscoop
ADA suits challenge Ybor businesses, Tampa Bay Online
Pingback: Advocacy or Appeasement?