Turns Out Paul Hansmeier's ADA Lawsuits Were Filed Without Knowledge Of The Plaintiffs

from the is-he-just-looking-to-pile-on-more-problems? dept

Last week, we wrote a couple times about Paul Hansmeier's new lawsuit strategy, which had some similar characteristics to ones he's had in the past: they appear to be nuisance lawsuits designed to quickly extract settlements, rather than for any legitimate legal reason. He had done this in the past, obviously, with copyright trolling, but then again with class action lawsuits. The latest round involved claimed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations, mainly arguing that various small business websites violated the ADA.

Remember, with the copyright cases, Hansmeier is now in trouble for being involved in bogus shell companies and forged signatures. With the class action objections, his clients were mostly close family members. Some of our commenters quickly speculated about whether or not the "clients" in these ADA cases were real... or, if they were, if they knew the lawsuits existed. Well, wonder no more. A local newspaper, The Mankato Free Press, has quite a story, detailing how at least one of the clients had absolutely no idea that Hansmeier was filing lawsuits on her behalf:

The plaintiff named in the Family Dentistry lawsuit is Lily Poss, a visually impaired woman from North Mankato. Poss said she supports the organization's mission statement. However, she's not sure she can support Hansmeier after learning about the tactics he's using.

Poss had no idea that lawsuit, nor another one involving a business called Bancwest Investment Services, had been filed in her name. It was her understanding she would be providing information about websites that would be used to educate businesses, she said. She said it was possible that lawsuits would be filed if businesses didn't comply, but she didn't realize Hansmeier and Class Justice would be going after small businesses such as Family Dentistry.

The article notes that Poss signed up for this after getting a call from a cousin she hadn't spoken to in years -- named Allan Mooney. You may recall that name from previous Prenda lawsuits, where it was spelled many different ways (Allan Mooney, Alan Mony, Alan Moony, etc), and who later told a reporter that he didn't know he was involved in these lawsuits. Of course, now you have to wonder about that if he's signing up his long lost cousins for the latest wacky scheme from Hansmeier to shakedown companies.

Hansmeier, quite incredibly, is claiming that he's working for the good of disabled people, tossing out this astounding line:

"We consider ourselves to be an advocacy association more than we consider ourselves a law firm," he said. "With the porn reputation, I wanted to shift my focus and focus on something more positive. We're really focused on doing it right so anyone who hears about us says, 'Yeah. This is the right way to go about it.'"

I know. Stop laughing. Of course, no one thinks this is the right way to go about it. The same reporter asked Ken Rodgers, the past president of the American Council of the Blind chapter in Minnesota, who agreed that websites that were hard for the blind to read can be a problem, but also made clear that he did not support what Hansmeier was doing at all, and, in fact, felt that it was just another way to squeeze money out of companies:

"Is he trying to make websites accessible, or is he just banking on the lawsuit revenue?" Rodgers said. "All this is doing is making the attorney wealthy, not fixing the problem. I would much rather have somebody make a business case to a business that has a website."

Furthermore, for all of Hansmseier's claims of doing "advocacy" work, when the reporter asked him to detail what advocacy organizations he's working with, he couldn't name any.

Filing a lawsuit on behalf of a client who hasn't actually agreed to be a part of that lawsuit could be a huge problem (though Hansmeier likely has bigger problems ahead on the priority list). Also, there's at least some potential that these plaintiffs may end up on the hook for attorneys' fees for the filing of bogus lawsuits.

Either way, you have to imagine that the almost certainly ongoing criminal investigation of Hansmeier's activities detailing the list of things he's done, the fact that he's continued to work on questionable schemes like this one, even after being slammed in courts all over the country for previous activities, won't reflect well on him.

Early on, I mentioned that Steele and Hansmeier really reminded me of some people I knew who were absolutely positive they were smarter than everyone else, when they really weren't. It's like they're playing chess by thinking they're the best chess players in the world because they can think one move ahead, while the people they're playing against can clearly see many moves ahead. It's astounding that they don't realize that each move they make only makes things worse and worse and worse.

Filed Under: ada, disabilities, flint million, lily poss, paul hansmeier, shake downs
Companies: class justice, prenda, prenda law

Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Has Been Busy Suing More Companies Over Questionable Website ADA Claims

from the count-'em dept

Earlier this week, we noted that Team Prenda's Paul Hansmeier appeared to be filing questionable lawsuits, claiming Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations, including over websites. We pointed out that this had the hallmarks of Hansmeier's historical trolling cases, including copyright trolling and settlement opposition: file nuisance cases that appear designed to encourage those sued to just pay up to settle. We pointed out that while there were just two of these ADA cases, since we only found out about the most recent one because it had been removed to federal court, we wondered if there were more lurking in Minnesota state court.

The answer is: yes, absolutely. And it didn't take long. Three more such cases have been removed to federal court, and they're all quite similar. In each case, Hansmeier claims that the websites violate the ADA by not being "accessible" to people with disabilities. In each case, the claims are highly questionable, as can be seen in the two responses that have been filed already (all embedded below). The earlier story involved a dentist office's website. The latest ones are a doctor's office, a bank, and a chiropractor. Basically small business websites. I expect that we'll be seeing many more of these as well. You'd think Hansmeier would be busy trying to defend all of the cases he's been losing where he owes attorneys' fees for his copyright trolling efforts, but apparently he just can't stop filing questionable lawsuits.

Filed Under: ada, john steele, paul hansmeier, websites
Companies: class action justice, prenda, prenda law

Team Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Now Suing Companies Over Supposed ADA Violations

from the everything's-a-shakedown dept

Team Prenda's Paul Hansmeier appears to believe in a simple formula for what he does. Find some highly questionable scenarios where he can file expensive lawsuits that are more of a nuisance than anything else, while offering up ample opportunities for parties to "settle." Obviously, his involvement in the Steele/Hansmeier/Prenda operations have received the most attention, but as we've been discussed, he's also been involved in the very questionable businesses of class action objections, in which he finds class action lawsuits that are almost settled, and then objects -- but makes it clear he'll "settle" for a big chunk of cash upfront. A few different people alerted me last week that Hansmeier's latest version of this appears to be going after companies for supposed Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations -- including claiming that their websites violate the ADA.

Like so much of what Team Prenda gets involved in, this plan appears to be copied from others. Last year, we wrote about a dangerous ruling that suggested that Netflix could be subject to the ADA for not making its movie streaming accessible to the deaf. At the time, we noted that this could be a dream for shady lawyers, and it looks like Hansmeier felt this was a perfect role for him. Hansmeier appears to be targeting small businesses -- those who are least likely to be able to afford a full legal defense, making them a lot more willing to settle. In one case, he's sued a dentist, arguing that the website does not comply with the ADA. Another case involves a small sporting goods store, though at least the accusations there are about the physical store, rather than the website. Even then, though, the accusations seem questionable. Hansmeier claims that the store is not accessible because there's a step in the front -- but the store owner's response points out that there's a second, fully accessible entrance for wheelchairs in the back, which is open during all store hours. Hansmeier also argues that the bathroom in the store does not have grab bars and thus is not ADA compliant, but the store owner points out that the bathroom is for staff use only, and it sounds like he let the guy in the wheelchair that Hansmeier is representing, Jaime Veliz, use the staff-only bathroom as a favor. As a thanks for that, they get sued.

Once again, all of these lawsuits that Hansmeier gets involved in seem to show a fairly similar pattern, looking for scenarios where it will almost always be less of a hassle to just pay off Hansmeier to go away than to challenge the (often questionable) legal claims in court. It's unclear how many of these ADA lawsuits Hansmeier has filed. There are only two in federal court, where they're easy to find, but the latest one was actually filed in Minnesota state court, and was then removed to federal court. For all we know there could be more in Minnesota state court, which are harder to find out about. Either way, Hansmeier really seems like the kind of person who gives lawyers such a bad reputation.

Filed Under: ada, paul hansmeier
Companies: class action justice, prenda, prenda law

Websites Deemed 'Place Of Public Accommodation' Under The ADA; Expects Lots Of Sites To Get Sued

from the or-move dept

Professor Eric Goldman is quite reasonably worried about a recent ruling in a case the National Assocation of the Deaf brought against Netflix, claiming it was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to not have closed captioning. Never mind the fact that this flies in the face of a ton of precedent (none of which is cited). Goldman is reasonably concerned that this could have a massive impact on all kinds of websites:

If websites must comply with the ADA, all hell will break loose. Could YouTube be obligated to close-caption videos on the site? (This case seems to leave that door open.) Could every website using Flash have to redesign their sites for browsers that read the screen? I'm not creative enough to think of all the implications, but I can assure you that ADA plaintiffs' lawyers will have a long checklist of items worth suing over. Big companies may be able to afford the compliance and litigation costs, but the entry costs for new market participants could easily reach prohibitive levels.

The key issue is whether or not a website is a place of public accommodation, which this court ruled it was, despite plenty of other rulings that went the other way:

The most crucial ruling is where the court says that a website qualifies as a "place of public accommodation." The court deviated from--and, incredibly, didn't cite to--a nearly unbroken line of precedent rejecting that conclusion. I don't have a complete roster of cases in this area, but cases that came to mind include Noah v. AOL (a Title II case), Access Now v. Southwest Airlines (an 11th Circuit case), Stern v. Sony, Young v. Facebook and Ouellette v. Viacom. The only plaintiff win in this area is the offbeat National Federation of the Blind v. Target case (which this court did cite), where the court held that Target's obligations to comply with the ADA in its offline retail stores extended to its website. Because of its fact-specific nature, the Target ruling really hasn't had much of an impact on Internet litigation over the past 6 years.

Bypassing all of this precedent, the judge instead relies almost exclusively on the heavily-criticized First Circuit Carparts decision from 1994. The NAD made a crafty venue move suing in a court bound by Carparts. Even so, I wonder how this ruling would fare on appeal to the First Circuit (if Netflix goes that route), and I wonder if judges in other circuits will be persuaded by this judge's ruling.

Of course, some have pointed out in response that this isn't that big of a deal, because of the ADA's "undue hardship" clause, which lets companies avoid accommodating the ADA if it presents an "undue hardship." While that may limit the most egregious cases, it still creates a ton of problems. The "undue hardship" clause is only a defense, and it's judged on a case-by-case basis, where the standards are incredibly vague and it has been described as a high bar to meet. Plus, the entire burden is put on the company (in this case, website), so there will likely be tons of lawsuits against websites until the actual standard for what counts as "undue hardship" is cleared up.

Even more insane in all of this is the one issue that Goldman only briefly alluded to in his piece: the requirement for closed captioning presents a massive potential copyright issue. We've seen people get in trouble for providing subtitles already. So suddenly this creates a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation: provide closed captioning and get sued for copyright infringement, or don't and get sued for ADA violations. Is copyright infringement (and a possible lawsuit?) an "undue hardship?" Who knows.

Of course, the paragraph above points out another issue with this ruling: that this is really an issue for the movie studios, not Netflix. Blaming Netflix is blaming the wrong party. Of course, the judge didn't seem to care about that. When Netflix raised that issue, the judge said that "this argument lacks traction" because the judge has already decided that Netflix is a place of public accommodation, and that's all that matters.

Hopefully Netflix successfully appeals this ruling. Otherwise, we're about to be in for a whole bunch of ADA claims against websites until the "boundaries" are worked out. For lots of small websites, such lawsuits could be extremely expensive and damaging.

Filed Under: accessibility, ada, closed captioning
Companies: netflix

Judge Not Impressed By Lawsuit By Woman Who Was Banned By Facebook

from the try-try-again dept

We recently wrote about the lawsuit a woman filed, claiming an ADA violation, after Facebook shut down her account for violating the site's terms of service. We were pretty damn skeptical the case could go anywhere, and it appears that it's off to a pretty unpromising start. Kashmir Hill alerts us to the article she wrote about the judge expressing extreme skepticism about the case:

In an order issued last week, California Judge Jeremy Fogel voiced extreme skepticism about Young's complaint of violations of her constitutional rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Fogel denied her the right to proceed in forma pauperis -- without paying court fees -- explaining in the order that he has the right to do so "if it appears from the face of the proposed complaint that the action is frivolous or without merit."

"As presently drafted, the complaint appears to be without merit in that it fails to set forth a cognizable claim," writes Fogel. He dismissed Young's civil rights claims since Facebook is not a government actor. "The remaining claims do not explain adequately how Plaintiff's rights have been violated and the legal basis upon which relief may be granted," he writes.

Certainly doesn't sound like this case is going to go anywhere at all, thankfully.

Filed Under: ada, ban
Companies: facebook

Woman Sues Facebook After Getting Banned

from the that's-not-how-this-works dept

Michael Scott points us to a story of a woman who not only drove from Maryland to California to go to Facebook's offices to complain about having her account banned, but (when that didn't get the account reinstated) then she sued the site for the ban. Facebook says she was banned for harassing others. The woman, Karen Beth Young, says she was just promoting causes she was interested in, and, in doing so, friending lots of people (about 4,000 by the time the account was closed). She claims the ban violated her constitutional rights... and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The constitutional claim is almost certainly a non-starter. As a company, Facebook certainly has the right to ban pretty much anyone it wants to ban. The ADA claim also seems like it won't go very far, but as Eric Goldman notes, with so much ADA litigation, there's always a chance that "a court could have sympathy for the plaintiff." In this case, she's claiming that she has a bipolar disorder, and Facebook "does not provide reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities," like her. But that implies the problem was with her mental health issues, rather than her actions on the site. This seems like yet another case of someone saying that if they don't like something it must be against the law... even when that's not the case at all.

Filed Under: access, ada, free speech, lawsuits
Companies: facebook

Santa Fe Ignores WiFi Allergists; Recognizes Setting Up WiFi Isn't A Violation Of The ADA

from the bring-on-the-lawsuits dept

Last month, we noted that a bunch of folks in Santa Fe, New Mexico were claiming not only were they allergic to WiFi, but the city's plan to install WiFi hotspots would be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Considering that multiple double-blind studies have shown there's no such thing as a WiFi allergy, we figured that those complaining of it should at least be forced to prove that such a thing exists. Indeed, it now appears that Santa Fe has decided to ignore the so-called WiFi allergists and move forward with installing WiFi. One of the folks protesting claims in response: "My first reaction is, it's a disaster. My second reaction is, they're inviting a lawsuit." That would be a fun lawsuit to follow, as I would imagine they'd have to show some sort of proof that a WiFi allergy exists.

Filed Under: ada, allergic, santa fe, wifi

If You're Going To Claim That WiFi Violates The ADA, Shouldn't You Need To Prove It Actually Hurts People?

from the just-saying... dept

Hot on the heels of yet another silly bogus WiFi health scare, Broadband Reports points us to a story of some folks in Santa Fe, New Mexico who aren't just worried about the health effects of WiFi, but are insisting that putting WiFi in public places is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Having once taken an entire college class on the ADA (admittedly many years ago), I'm having trouble recalling which section would apply. Given that double-blind studies and various tests have shown no evidence of WiFi having an impact on people, you would think that those worried about it would have the burden of proof in demonstrating a real health problem. And, given those double-blind studies, it should need to go beyond random people insisting that WiFi makes them feel ill.

Filed Under: ada, allergic, wifi