NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - A civil justice advocacy group is calling on the New York Attorney General to investigate lawyers who file serial Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits against small businesses.
The Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York (LRANY) sent a letter to AG Letitia James alleging that certain law firms are distorting the purpose of the federal law in order to extract settlements from vulnerable businesses.
“A small number of law firms are filing hundreds of lawsuits alleging accessibility violations,” wrote LRANY executive director Tom Stebbins in the May 5 letter. “Rather than working to improve accessibility, these firms pursue monetary damages and collect the maximum amount allowed by law in attorney fees. For many small businesses, the cost of legal fees and lost productivity from a lawsuit has the potential to put them out of business permanently.”
The number of ADA lawsuits filed statewide has increased from 125 in 2013 to 2,744 in 2021, according to Seyfarth Shaw, and the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce in Manhattan reports some 20 small businesses have been sued in lower Manhattan in just the last two years. The Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce has also sent a letter to AG James requesting an investigation.
“A large portion of them are being sued by the same lawyers,” said Maria Diaz, executive director of the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce. “Many thought that because their buildings were old, they were grandfathered in and that's not the case. We advise them to seek out a firm that can help them become compliant. We wouldn't be able to do much else unless a business actually wanted to go to trial and most of the businesses just want to get rid of this issue and settle.”
Typically, the amount of money that an ADA defendant settles for is between $10,000 and $20,000, which is a lot of money for small businesses, according to Diaz.
“We want to make sure the fees the lawyers are charging the businesses are not being shared with the plaintiff,” she said. “My understanding is that it’s unethical because you can only sue for damages. They can pay for the damages but it’s the fees for the lawyers that are exorbitant.”
Lawyers named in LRANY’s demand letter to General James include Stuart Finkelstein, who was arrested for filing hundreds of fraudulent ADA lawsuits in 2019, and Ben-Zion Bradley Weitz, which was briefly reprimanded and denied legal fees by a federal judge in 2013, according to media reports.
AG James did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“What the businesses all have in common is that they are all on either Hudson or Bleecker in the West Village where they have stoops,” Diaz added. “In many of the cases, you have to take a step into the establishment and the streets are super narrow. So, a ramp wouldn't be built easily for many of the businesses.”