Posted on 12/24/2005 6:25:50 AM PST by radar101
Lawyer tells 67 businesses they violate ADA; he wants fee.
The letters arrived in the mailboxes of 67 business owners here more than a month ago.
San Diego attorney Theodore Pinnock, who describes himself as a "warrior for the disabled," said he was "shocked" to find during a Veterans Day weekend trip to the historic town that many of the stores were in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Wheelchair ramps and handicapped parking spaces were in short supply. Doors weren't wide enough at some businesses. Some bathrooms weren't equipped properly for the disabled. The letters threatened lawsuits against virtually every business in town and claimed noncompliance with federal and state laws.
But Pinnock, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, offered a solution.
Enter into negotiations with him, pay somewhere between $2,500 and $4,000 to the attorney for his fee and agree to correct the accessibility issues at their businesses.
The alternative: Face trial and the exorbitant legal fees that would likely follow.
Community and business leaders in the town screamed, "Shakedown!"
Many have expressed a desire to fight, while others have quietly settled for as little as $300 to $800 and a promise to correct the disability problems within three years.
Usually, Pinnock said, he simply files a lawsuit, then settles out of court. The mass mailing to the Julian businesses was something new for him. He refers to it as the "Julian Experiment."
Julian, of course, has seen tough times recently. Though the town itself was saved in October 2003, hundreds of homes in the surrounding area were destroyed by the Cedar fire.
To many business owners, Pinnock's actions are like another firestorm.
Rick Campbell, owner of the most recently constructed business in Julian – The Birdwatcher store – speaks pointedly.
"I think what he's doing is nothing short of criminal," Campbell said.
"It's a loophole in the law that demands to be closed immediately. It hurts all businesses, but big players like Target can absorb this stuff. He's going after the little guys now and hurting families." Campbell's store was built in 1997 and is a replica of the Pioneer Hotel, which burned to the ground in 1892. "I comply 100 percent with county and state requirements or else it wouldn't have passed code," he said.
Pinnock, he said, is going after his business based on inadequate signage. "Nit-picking stuff," Campbell calls it.
The Americans With Disabilities Act has been federal law for 15 years, but it remains largely up to people like Pinnock to ensure that it works. Even some of the sharpest foes of these types of lawsuits acknowledge that the vast majority of the complaints are legitimate.
With the law's exacting standards, violations are easy to find, and some experts estimate less than 2 percent of public buildings are in compliance.
Mass mailing Pinnock said he decided to do the mass mailing of the ADA notice letters to Julian businesses because the way he's gone about it in the past hasn't corrected problems fast enough. "We've done it piecemeal in the past," he said. A lawsuit here, a lawsuit there. "It would take years and years for everyone to come into compliance that way. We need a new way."
He said he is pro small business and feels that the state and federal governments should do more to make business owners aware of disability laws.
He also said he feels for the community of Julian.
"We know that people in Julian are suffering. However, the ADA was passed 13 years before the fire. They should have been in compliance. We are mindful of the problems caused by the fire and we're settling for something that is more than reasonable."
Some of the businesses have hired their own lawyers, but most are represented by one of two attorneys. Those represented by Carol Brophy, a San Francisco lawyer, have either already settled or are expected to settle soon, Pinnock said, and Brophy agreed.
Those who are represented by James Mason, a lawyer with San Diego-based Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, have taken a harder stance.
Mason represents about 40 of the businesses. He said what rankles his clients isn't having to comply with access laws, but having to pay Pinnock a fee.
"My clients from Day One have agreed to do compliance," he said. "The tricky issues in Julian involve the historic designation of the town. These people are going to do everything that's readily achievable. What's really needed is time to have a consultant analyze the impact of the historical component of the particular business."
Mason said many of the business owners were hit hard by the fire and were suffering financial duress even before Pinnock came into their lives.
"They have limited resources and would rather spend money on access issues than give it to an attorney."
On Monday, Pinnock filed a class-action lawsuit against the businesses that haven't already settled.
He said on Wednesday that he would refile the suit next week because the business he used as the prime example for the class action has now decided to settle.
Dick Thilken, president of the Julian Chamber of Commerce, said it's not right to say the holdout businesses are fighting Pinnock.
"We're encouraging our membership to do what we can to bring things up to compliance where it's feasible. We're looking for some expertise to tell us what we can and we can't do."
He said negotiations are continuing.
Thilken said the letters came as a "total shock" to the business owners. "I feel that the community always has been sensitive to people with disabilities. There have been very few instances over the years where people have complained."
Hundreds of cases Pinnock has a severe speech impediment and was interviewed with the help of an interpreter. He said that since the Julian letters went out, his life has been threatened by an anonymous caller and complaints have been filed against him with the state bar. But Pinnock, who has built a successful practice pursuing hundreds of cases similar to this for more than a decade, said all he is doing is working within the framework of the law.
In fact, he says, by giving the business owners an option to avoid court, he was acting in their best financial interest.
He says he has done nothing unethical. "All lawyers recover fees and damages. If the public doesn't like that, take it up with the lawmakers. I only apply the law."
While most business owners in Julian are upset about the way Pinnock has gone about his business, some do understand why he is doing it.
"On one hand, we needed to be made aware of the issue, which he did," said Elke Mussen, owner of Julian Drug Store and Candy Mine. "But it seems like he's doing this more or less professionally. I think it should be done differently."
Mussen's store is in one of the oldest existing brick buildings in Southern California, built in 1886.
"It's pretty impossible for a wheelchair," she said.
She said she plans to build a ramp by a side door. "We should have done this a long time ago, but it was never really brought to our attention. I didn't even know this mandate existed."
J. Harry Jones: (760) 737-7579; jharry.jones@uniontrib.com
ADA is one of the worst laws ever enacted. Bob Dole should be ashamed of himself.
Well, I give him credit for finding a shakedown niche that Jesse Jackson hasn't taken yet.
Just let the creep pay for the modifications himself! He gives disabled people a bad name. He doesn't speak for me!
Well if there's no ADA type of safety for lawyers in wheelchairs then invite him back to negotiate.........anything can happen........:o)
Problem solved.
So this guy just rolls from town to town in his wheelchair extorting money from small businesses who cant afford to accomodate the ADA . They either pay up or close up. Nice little scam he has going here. The ADA has cost Billions in this country from tearing up sidewalks and putting in ramps where no handicapped person has ever been, to lowering urinals they still cant reach.
This guy is no more than a legal con-artist. A shyster lawyer with a scam. Calling himself a "Warrior for the Disabled". He should call himself a disabled crook.
L
*ahem*
That's differently-abled crook.
Is the silk pony Breck "Girl" (aka John Edwards) involved here?
I saw this happening down in FL These scumbags would bring their tape measure to the handicap bathroom and mearure things like rail heights and door widths. If they varied from the code they filed against them. What a crock of S***!!
(In my sweetest Mr. Rogers voice) "Can you say blackmail? I knew you could!"
Hmm. I know the case of churches which cannot (it is too expensive) modify/enlarge their buildings because they would have to install elevators and ramps, so the people in wheelchairs could move without using others people help.
He is responsible for the closure of one of the origional drive in restraunt hangouts in South Cal it was in Hot Rod Mag a few years back.
Yeah, but he's probably got the rest of the legal "profession" grimacing that they didn't think of this scam first.
This guy probably got his first commie/lawyer/scum lessons from the ACLU.
ADA is ANOTHER damn "full employment" scheme for the excess stock of lawyers grown from the attitudes of the 60's and 70's......OL' Will was RIGHT!
THANK YOU, SIR! MAY I HAVE ANOTHER?
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