California’s ADA Racket

July marks the 17th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The federal law, approved with bipartisan support in Washington, was intended to eliminate discrimination against disabled Americans and ensure access to places serving the general public.

More recently, however, the law has been hijacked by a handful of lawyers looking to make big bucks off California’s small businesses. Consider Theodore Pinnock, a disabled lawyer from San Diego, whose firm has filed more than 2,000 ADA lawsuits in the state.

His strategy is simple. Pinnock finds a business he believes has violated some aspect of the access laws. Then he sends a letter demanding both physical changes to make the business ADA compliant and a chunk of money for his unsolicited expert services. If they don’t meet these demands, Pinnock threatens to sue under state-specific laws that allow him to receive up to $125,000 in legal fees.

The amount he demands increases the longer a business holds out—a high-pressure strategy that has earned him a settlement rate of 95 percent. And because he uses a wheelchair, Pinnock often does not need to find a plaintiff and can sue on his own behalf.

Last January Pinnock sent letters to 67 small stores in the historic Gold Rush town of Julian. He claimed that widespread ADA noncompliance had ruined his weekend vacation. The smallest demand made to any one business was $2,500, which means that, in total, Pinnock was looking to gain at least $167,500 from Julian businesses for his spoiled weekend. He called this gold rush his “Julian Experiment.”

The debacle led to a few negotiated settlements – a quick payoff in exchange for temporary lawsuit immunity – but also some fights. A number of storeowners offered to use the money Pinnock demanded for his services to make the necessary access changes, but Pinnock tellingly refused. Four Julian businesses were forced to close their doors, citing Pinnock’s aggression as the final hit to their already struggling shops.

Last March, Pinnock repeated his strategy and sent letters to 40 businesses in Alpine, also in San Diego County. He demanded $10,500 from each business for alleged ADA violations. This time the intended payoff was $420,000, much of it from businesses whose owners believed they were in full compliance with the law.

Pinnock also filed a claim against the owner of a store in the Ocean Beach district of San Diego. The lawsuit claimed that the woman he represented found the front door too heavy, counters that were too high, and bathrooms that were not accessible. This store, however, closed its doors more than a year before the complaint. The absurdity of Pinnock’s shake-down campaign was revealed, with consequences.

The court sanctioned Pinnock for making allegations “without reasoned and competent inquiry,” ordered him to pay more than $15,000 in fees to the defendant, and mandated four hours of legal ethics training. But that didn’t stop him.

Pinnock plans to continue shaking down small businesses for alleged ADA noncompliance. Numerous attorneys join him in this lucrative trade, forcing California’s small businesses to pay them off in order to avoid the possibility of even larger financial loss.

The state legislature could stop these predators in their tracks but, thus far, has rejected all attempts to fix the problem. Until legislators eliminate the legal loopholes, this legalized extortion will persist and lawyers like Pinnock will maintain unfair access to the hard-earned money of California’s small businesses. 

Hovannes Abramyan is a public policy fellow in business and economic studies at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. He can be reached at habramyan@pacificresearch.org.