The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued its first ruling of the term, dismissing a case dealing with a disabled woman’s ability to sue hotels after reviewing their websites for violating disability laws — despite not planning to visit the hotels at all.
The chain took her complaint to the high court, arguing it can’t be liable if she didn’t plan to stay there and sought a ruling from the justices that anyone suing over a violation of the Americans With Disability Act must have planned to visit. It claimed the woman lacked standing, known as legal injury, to bring the lawsuit.
The high court, in a unanimous ruling, said the case was moot and should be dismissed because the woman, Deborah Laufer, moved to voluntarily dismiss her legal battle after her lawyer was sanctioned by a court below. She also promised not to file more cases.
“She voluntarily dismissed her pending ADA cases after a lower court sanctioned her lawyer. She represented to this court that she will not file any others,” wrote Justice Amy Coney Barrett for the court. “We dismiss it on that ground. We emphasize, however, that we might exercise our discretion differently in a future case.”
The ruling effectively tells the lower court — the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — to dismiss Ms. Laufer’s case and vacate its original ruling in her favor.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, although she agreed with the court’s dismissal of the case, did not agree with vacating the lower court’s ruling siding with Ms. Laufer.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to stress the point that he thinks the court should have answered the question about whether disabled people like Ms. Laufer have standing to bring a case even if they don’t plan to visit the property that allegedly violates the ADA. He said he would have ruled Ms. Laufer does not have standing, or legal injury, to bring the case.
Ms. Laufer has made a career out of the Americans With Disabilities Act by searching the internet to find hotels she says don’t meet the law’s standards for disabled patrons. She has filed more than 600 complaints against hotels, reached settlements and then collected costs and attorneys’ fees.
Opponents have argued her string of lawsuits is a cash grab. One lower court judge said it would have been impossible for her to stay at all the locations detailed in her suits and sanctioned one of her lawyers for filing the complaints.
Remarkably, Ms. Laufer had asked the Supreme Court not to hear the matter involving a chain of hotels in Maine that refused to settle. She said she would dismiss the lawsuit in lower court.
The high court declined her request at the time and heard arguments over the issue in October.
Adam Unikowsky, an attorney representing Acheson Hotels, urged the justices to rule against Ms. Laufer, who has become known as a tester looking to enforce ADA compliance, because she didn’t plan to stay at the chain.
According to court filings, Ms. Laufer said she lost her job after a multiple sclerosis diagnosis, developed depression and had difficulty traveling because hotels did not provide wheelchair access, which is a violation of the ADA.
After learning she could work toward ensuring ADA compliance, she took the opportunity to help others, according to her court declaration.
“Serving as an ADA plaintiff helped get me out of my depression because it allowed me to help myself and other people,” she said in a declaration. Ms. Laufer said she did not file the ADA cases to make money.
The case was Acheson Hotels v. Deborah Laufer.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 requires public establishments to make reasonable accommodations for disabled people to access their services and facilities. A provision compels hotel owners to describe features at the establishment for people with disabilities.
Ms. Laufer, who has impaired vision and uses a cane or wheelchair for mobility, said Coast Village Inn & Cottages, an Acheson Hotels property in Maine, didn’t list accessible rooms on its website and doesn’t provide enough information to determine whether she could be accommodated. She said that violates her rights under the ADA.
A U.S. District Court sided with Acheson Hotels, saying Ms. Laufer wasn’t planning to be a customer and therefore didn’t have standing to sue. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, finding that withholding the information amounted to harm to Ms. Laufer and gave her legal standing to sue.
Other district and circuit courts have ruled the other way, creating the sort of split — created by Ms. Laufer’s slew of cases — that makes a case attractive for the Supreme Court.
The court left the ultimate question of whether a disabled person can sue for violations of the ADA even if they don’t plan to visit the establishment for another case.
Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said this case was about “serial litigants” not about the ADA.
“While we would have welcomed a broader ruling, the Supreme Court today sent a message to other serial litigants against ‘manipulating the jurisdiction of the [Supreme Court],’” and revealed how the court “might exercise its discretion differently in a future case,” he said.
“Because Acheson and the hotel industry fought back, the plaintiff dismissed hundreds of suits against hotels and vowed to the court she would never again bring these types of claims. This will bring some solace to small business hoteliers who for years have been victimized by drive-by and click-by tester lawsuits,” Mr. Rogers said.
• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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