WHY SAY NO TO SB67

For over 40 years, persons with disabilities have had the legal right to full and free access to roadways, sidewalks, buildings and facilities open to the public, hospitals and medical facilities, and housing pursuant to the CA Disabled Persons Act. 

Long before the ADA was passed, California was concerned about the lack of enforcement of the DPA. It repeatedly increased DPA's statutory damages and added an attorney fee shifting statute as a private gain incentive to encourage private enforcement of DPA. Cases filed under DPA and ADA Title III seeks to enforce a right deemed to have special social importance. They involve situations in which governmental authority or resources do not suffice to assure adequate public enforcement, or in which successful pressing of such claims will benefit numbers of other people (by deterring other violations, for example, or making new law). THE LEGAL THEORY OF ATTORNEY FEE SHIFTING: A CRITICAL OVERVIEW, THOMAS D. ROWE, JR.*DUKE LAW JOURNAL[1] Docket 21-23.

Now California, once the leading state for the advocating of civil rights of people with disabilities, is using the pretext of reducing litigation to reduce disabled persons’ civil rights. California’s pretext of using reduction of litigation as a pretextual basis becomes crystal clear by examining the small claims cases.

There were 71,252 such cases filed in 2012 with only a 41% disposition before trial success rate. Yet, in these cases, defendants do not have the option of forcing plaintiffs to an EEC while the

case is stayed. The State would reduce litigation in small claim matters by requiring such an EEC, but the State does not require such a process.  However, California passed two EEC laws targeted at disabled persons filing equal access claims when, in 2012, only 2078 such claims were filed. As of January 2015, 46% of such cases were filed by two plaintiffs only and only two law firms filed the majority of such cases. The State says it passed SB 1186 to reduce litigation. If the State were actually interested in reducing litigation it would have focused on small claims cases as 51% of those cases must be tried, which is a large caseload. In light of the disparity of treatment between construction access and small claim matter, the State is engaging in proxy discrimination[2] against people with disabilities.

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[2] Pacific Shores applies to the instant bill as to “proxy discrimination.”  The State contends that SB67 is a neutral law that targets the bad conduct of lawyers.  However, this is only a proxy to eliminate the enforcement of the ADA and California Law related to a disfavored group or groups.  The disfavored groups are the Plaintiffs with disabilities that bring the ADA lawsuits and their attorneys to enforce the access laws and for private gain.  SB67 wants to stop private gain.  Congress passed the ADA to guarantee civil rights to people with disabilities without creating bureaucracy. Pacific Shores Properties, LLC v. City of Newport Beach, 730 F.3d 1142, 28 C.A.9 (Cal.),2013.