By Minh N. Vu and Susan Ryan

In August 2014, we reported that the number of ADA Title III lawsuits filed against public accommodations rose by nearly 9% in 2013 over 2012. At that time, we predicted that there could be a 40% increase in the number of lawsuits filed in 2014 based on 6 months of data. Now that we have all the data, the actual number is far higher: There was a 63% surge, resulting in a grand total of 4,436 ADA Title III lawsuits filed in 2014.

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How Does This Compare to The Number of ADA Employment Lawsuits?

Just to put this into perspective, for comparison purposes we looked at the number of lawsuits filed under Title I of the ADA which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment. As the below chart shows, those numbers remained very steady in 2012-2014, and numbered well under half the total Title III cases filed in 2014.

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Where Are Most of These Cases Filed?

California continues to lead the country with the highest number of ADA Title III lawsuits (1866), with Florida coming in a close second (1553). New York (212), Pennsylvania (135), and Alabama (117) hold the distant third, fourth, and fifth place slots. These five states also saw the largest percentage increase in the number of lawsuits.

In stark contrast, there was not a single ADA Title III lawsuit filed in 2014 in Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

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What is driving these higher lawsuit numbers, 25 years after the passage of the ADA?

Although we have not studied every complaint to answer this question, we did notice some trends in 2014 in our own practice. In addition to the usual lawsuits alleging physical access barriers at hotels, retailers, and shopping centers, we handled a number of cases brought by plaintiffs alleging a failure to provide accessible pool lifts, mostly in Florida. Some of these cases were clearly frivolous because the hotels did have pool lifts. Plaintiffs represented by one law firm filed more than 60 class action lawsuits in the Western District of Pennsylvania. Many of these alleged that the parking lots of various retailers, restaurants, and banks do not have compliant accessible parking spaces.   We also handled federal class actions alleging that some retailers’ point of sale devices are not accessible to the blind.

Who is filing these lawsuits?

We looked at our top five jurisdictions to see who some of the repeat filers were in 2014 under both ADA Title II (state and local government defendants) and Title III (public accommodations (private sector businesses)). In Florida, a plaintiff named Howard Cohan filed 529 such suits. In California, a plaintiff named Martin Vogel filed 124 suits. In Pennsylvania, a plaintiff named Christopher Mielo brought 21 lawsuits. In New York, a plaintiff named Zoltan Hirsch brought 24 lawsuits. In Alabama, a plaintiff named David Higginbotham filed 16 lawsuits.

A Note About Our Methodology

Our data comes from PACER, the federal court electronic docket system. When filing a new lawsuit, a plaintiff has two ADA codes to choose from: “Americans with Disabilities: Employment” or “Americans with Disabilities: Other.” The “other” category refers to ADA Titles II or III. Our diligent librarian, Susan Ryan, obtained the ADA Title III case numbers by reviewing each of the case names (and where necessary, the complaints) to eliminate all Title II cases. As far as we know, no one else has undertaken this task, so you are hearing it here first on this blog.

Edited by Kristina M. Launey