The story behind Senate Bill 84 is a long, cruel, and expensive one.

It’s one about the bad guys getting away with it, with “serial plaintiffs filing hundreds of lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act, shaking down unsuspecting business owners, most of who are small business owners, non-English-speaking, and/or living in economically disadvantaged parts of the state,” reports the California Globe in a story about Sacramento-area Sen. Roger Niello’s SB 84, which seeks to give everyone a period of time to correct a violation before being sued.

“Sen. Niello told the Globe that there are 3-4 law firms in the state who specialize in disability access lawsuits intimidating non-English-speaking business owners, who out of fear, end up paying the shakedown fees to make the lawsuit or threat of a lawsuit go away.

“According to Niello, ‘two plaintiffs filed more than 1,000 combined ADA lawsuits across California from 2020-2021 and are some of the most frequent filers in Northern California, according to an NBC Bay area analysis. In 2021, California had more disability access lawsuits filed than the remaining 49 states, combined.’”

Passage of Senate Bill 84 is one of NFIB California’s top goals this year, because a lawsuit is no small matter to a small business. The law firm of Novian & Novian says, “On average, it costs employers around $75,000 to work with an employment lawyer to settle a claim before it reaches trial. However, if the case progresses to court, the expenses can skyrocket, with pre-trial defense costs easily exceeding $125,000.”

Care to share your story? NFIB invites you to tell it here.

Related

NFIB Urges California Supreme Court to Define and Limit PAGA Actions
“The ramifications of this case will go far beyond just the parties involved,” said John Kabateck, State Director for NFIB in California. “Small business owners and other employers had to wait 20 years to finally win some reforms to the state’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), which quickly evolved from a well-intentioned but misguided law into a legal weapon to wring settlement money out of employers, the biggest amounts of which went to law firms instead of the supposedly aggrieved. It would be a pity to see Leeper v. Shipt halt the progress. Add in the shakedown lawsuits allowed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s reputation as the land of endless litigation will severely impede our ability to start and sustain a healthy economy.”

Move over Dodgers, Lawyers are No. 1 in This League
“In a state where the trial-lawyer lobby has an outsized influence, you can’t help but feel that lawsuit abuse seems to be the standard operating procedure of our judicial world. If you want a sterling example of how the shakedown mill works, look no further than Senate Bill 222 (Wiener), which would have opened up whole new opportunities for litigation under the guise of climate change; Senate Bill 799 (Allen), which would have greatly expanded the False Claims Act to include confidential records; and another Wiener proposal, Senate Bill 310, which would have undone all the reforms to the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). Fortunately, all three bills failed to pass.”

Resources

Learn more about the abuse of the Americans with Disabilities Act, abusive Prop. 65 lawsuits, and PAGA (the ‘Sue Your Boss’ law) at the Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse California website here.

Also check out NFIB’s Responding to ADA Lawsuits.