ADA & ACCESSIBILITY CLAIMS

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Our Firm became involved in the investigation and defense of ADA claims when a number of our commercial clients were sued by an individual Plaintiff, who set forth substantially similar claims in each case. We have also assisted clients throughout the State of Florida in complying with the ADA requirements for business and property owners to remove barriers to access by the disabled. The ADA allows disabled individuals who have actually suffered discrimination to seek injunctions from the courts to compel compliance and provides that for doing so they are entitled to recover from defendants their legal fees, costs and litigation expenses. This provision of the act has created a lucrative opportunity for lawyers to sue businesses and property owners to enforce the technical provisions of the ADA in order to seek attorney fees for themselves. In our experience handling the defense of these cases, most are either completely or largely without merit and defensible. However, it is important during the initial stages of these claims to evaluate for our clients the likelihood of a successful defense and the risk of exposure to the Plaintiff’s attorney fees and litigation expenses that are often inflated or unreasonable. This type of early analysis gives our clients the opportunity to make business decisions from the onset of the matter on how the case should be postured for resolution or trial.