Conflicting rulings from lower courts leave unresolved questions about hotels’ responsibilities to provide information on accommodations for disabled individuals. iStock photo

Deborah Laufer suffers from multiple sclerosis. Her disabilities require numerous accommodations, including accessible parking, wheelchair ramps and widened passageways.

Until recently, Laufer also was a self-appointed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) “tester,” who surfed the internet to identify hotels that are noncompliant with ADA regulations.

The ADA forbids discrimination against disabled individuals which prevents them from fully enjoying places of public accommodation. Hotels are subject to this law. ADA regulations require that hotel websites and reservations systems describe accessibility features in hotel facilities.

The regulations serve a worthy purpose. When hotels properly follow them, disabled individuals can often discern from a hotel’s reservation website whether the hotel can accommodate their disabilities. Without this information, a disabled individual might not learn about a hotel’s shortcomings until after he or she has made reservations and arrived at the hotel, at which point it might be too late for the individual to avoid inconvenience and embarrassment.

Unfortunately, some ADA testers and their attorneys engage in questionable tactics when seeking to enforce ADA regulations.

Laufer sued hundreds of hotels in federal courts all over the country, when she discovered that their reservation websites violated the regulations, even though she did not intend to actually visit the hotels. Her lawyers demanded declaratory judgments, injunctive relief and – perhaps most importantly – attorney’s fees. The ADA does not allow private parties to collect monetary damages, but it does require violators to pay the private parties’ legal fees. This created a lucrative industry for lawyers associated with testers like Laufer.

When responding to these lawsuits, many hotels raised the issue of whether testers have standing to file ADA lawsuits. Courts developed the standing doctrine to ensure that plaintiffs have concrete injuries, and that they are not merely concerned bystanders seeking to vindicate their value interests. In order to have standing, plaintiffs must suffer actual injury, traceable to the defendants’ misconduct, which can be redressed by the courts. Some federal courts have ruled that Laufer lacked standing to maintain her lawsuits, while others ruled that she does have standing.

‘Unequal Footing’ at Maine Inn

One of Laufer’s myriad ADA lawsuits targeted a New England inn, the Coast Village Inn and Cottages of Wells, Maine, which she sued in 2020 for violating ADA regulations. The federal district court dismissed her suit for lack of standing, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overruled that decision.

The appeals court found that the hotel web site’s lack of information on accommodations caused Laufer a concrete injury, because it put her “on an unequal footing to experience the world in the same way as those who do not have disabilities.”

Because of the split among federal appeals courts on Laufer’s standing, last March the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Maine hotel’s appeal of Laufer’s case. Then several embarrassing facts about Laufer’s attorney came to light. It was revealed that her attorney routinely demanded $10,000 settlements from multiple small hotels, using boilerplate complaints that often had the same typos. Her attorney also funneled significant sums to the father of Laufer’s grandchild, for investigative work that he never performed.

A federal court in Maryland suspended the attorney from the practice of law for defrauding hotels by lying in fee petitions and settlement negotiations. A federal appeals court later vacated the suspension order, but disciplinary proceedings against the attorney are ongoing.

Christopher R. Vaccaro

Decision Leaves Issue Unresolved

After these events, Laufer voluntarily dismissed her pending ADA lawsuits, including the suit against the Maine hotel, and represented that she will not file any others. She urged the Supreme Court to dismiss her lawsuit as moot, because she no longer sought to pursue it. But the Maine hotel was not willing to let Laufer just walk away from the suit. It asked the Supreme Court to rule on the standing issue once and for all, so hotels nationwide could know whether or not other ADA testers could continue to pursue similar lawsuits.

The Supreme Court chose to dismiss Laufer’s case instead of hearing it. Its ruling leaves unresolved the split decisions in the lower federal courts regarding ADA testers’ standing. The court emphasized, however, that it might decide tester cases differently if they reappear in the future. Justice Clarence Thomas stated in a concurring opinion that he would have dismissed Laufer’s case for lack of standing.

Regardless of how the federal courts ultimately rule on the standing issue, hotels and inns should familiarize themselves with ADA regulations, to make sure their web sites and reservations systems offer accessibility information to disabled individuals.

Christopher R. Vaccaro Esq. is a partner at Dalton & Finegold L.L.P. in Andover. His email address is cvaccaro@dfllp.com.