Why I am respectfully declining to sign Mr. Meihaus's petition. · 3:47pm May 26th, 2012
Josh Meihaus is asking American citizens to sign a petition calling for changes to California's implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Chromosome has written a good blog in favor of the petition. I oppose it.
As Josh explains the situation:
I'm on the verge of carpel-tunnel on account of all the typing I've been doing for the last few hours, but in a nutshell, my family is now the victim of a frivolous lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act. A man named Chris Langer has filed over 200 lawsuits in San Diego in the last ten years, seemingly for personal gain. He's now targeting my family for a $6,000 lawsuit, and there's nothing stopping him from doing this to more businesses once he's through with us.
I oppose the petition for two reasons. The first is simple:
>By increasing awareness, we can put political pressure on the judicial system to have this and future lawsuits like it thrown out of court.
The judicial branch ought not bow to political pressure. That's the job of the legislative and (to a lesser extent) the executive branches. Politicized courts are a frightening step closer to political imprisonment and pogroms.
But that in itself is not reason to discount this petition. California's courts are quite proud of their independence, and I doubt an Internet petition presents any threat to that.
No, the stronger argument is this:
Professional plaintiffs are small businesses too. Yes, they file lawsuits for personal benifit. But this by itself is no more or less moral than cafe owners who benefit themselves by charging a mark-up on coffee.
(and I'll bet it's quite a markup. Scandalous, really.)
Furthermore, the ADA only allows plaintiffs to sue to have a problem fixed ("injunctive relief" in legalese). It does not allow "damages" (a fine paid from one private party to another). We're actually talking about an older California law: the Unruh Civil Rights Act.
To explain this law, I need to introduce a basic legal concept. It's unfortunate that it's not taught in civics courses in school, but legal illiteracy is an accpted way of life in our so-called democracy.
A tort is situation where one person's action causes unfair harm to another person. "Unfair" is defined by law, and in California the UCRA includes violations of the Federal ADA under that umbrella.
The initial costs of investigating and building a tort case are born by the plaintiff, the plaintiff's lawyers, action groups, or some combination of the above. Once the case starts, the court may order the defendant to suffer part of the cost of investigation (by providing documents or allowing access to its property). In general if the defendant is at fault, the plaintiff recovers the monetary value costs plus the court-ordered compensation.
It's a good system, one that has served English and American legal systems well for hundreds of years. If properly tuned, it encourages neighbors to settle disputes outside of court while the legal rules ("civil code") stay consistent for everyone. Public money isn't spent on investigating claims, only on judging them. You don't need to bribe officials whenever you want a complaint investigated or your business protected (as happens in most of the world).
Some laws allow executive agencies to complain representing the public in general - The Clean Air and Water Acts are good examples of laws enforced under this system. If people aren't happy with their government's enforcment of these laws, they can take and historically have taken matters into their own hands through non-profits and class actions.
The failure of the UCRA in California is not that it allows professional plaintiffs - if ADA violations are widespread enough that someone can prosecute them full time, then those people are doing a public service for private gain. That's no better or worse than any other business.
The problem is one of tuning. The law does not require plaintiffs to ask businesses to fix problems. It doesn't put them on the hook for reasonable legal costs if they lose. Those are reasonable things to ask for the sake of fairness and good neighborliness.
If I were a California citizen, I'd certainly support amendments along those lines. But I can't sign this petition. It attacks the wrong law in the wrong jurisdiction for the wrong reasons in the wrong way.
I do however wish the Meihaus family fair proceedings, especially if they're on the right side of their responsibilities. I have no reason to think they aren't.
Eustatian Wings is ... a law professional?
Hm... Thank you kindly for your insight into this issue. I enjoyed reading!