How Could NY Lawyers Invade Small Businesses?
Small businesses are being invaded one by one all over the United States! If you have a business that has a website of any kind, watch out; you are at risk! How?
In New York there is a law, which was supposedly meant to protect blind people (Look up the New York State and New York City human rights laws). But low and behold, the New York legal system (courts and lawyers) has found a way to sue all of you (website owners in the US). You can be sued multiple times, right out of existence, using this innocent-seeming law. (Yes, you!)
The New York lawyers instigating this (filing the suits) are basically thugs. They are skewing “the law” and using it to make money, and for 2 years now it’s been working. The number of their cases is climbing exponentially year-by-year! These are not about discrimination or anything else the law firms hide behind. No. It’s a loophole for committing “legal” extortion on us all (i.e., all small business owners with websites of any kind).
The claim is that YOU (website owner) have no right to own a website that a NY blind person cannot read! What? Think about that for a second!
Now Here Comes the Killer. Since pretty much everyone is online these days, there’s nothing to say that everyone in the US couldn’t be faced with a lawsuit like this in the very near future.
Could you imagine a company having 5 of these cases to settle? (I actually know one person who had to settle five identical cases just last year. He was hit with all in a very short time of each other.)
How Can a Blind Person Read a Website?
The screen readers that are often used by legally blind people use a technology to translate to voice the contents of the internet. The issue is that this technology isn’t good enough to read everything.
The fact is that until the builders of websites learn how to make the sites “readable” by blind people’s screen-readers it will never be solved. It would be helpful if such “website-building-codes” were created, and then shared with website developers, but what fun would that be? So, when a website is created it uses the latest technology for speed and normal user-friendliness (defined by Google) and ignores website-translator technology because they don’t even know about it.
Building a website isn’t the same as a physical building. There are no codes in place for websites. But, the NY discrimination laws imply there are. That’s just not true. If there were legal codes one has to follow for building a website, website builders don’t know about them.
It should be noted that there are apps (programs) you can purchase a subscription to, that will also solve this problem for the most part. But, how would one know anything about any of this unless it’s brought to their attention?
Is Your Website at Risk for Such a Law Suit? Well, Is it a “Public Accommodation” or Isn’t It?
Defining “public accommodation” is the crux of the sue-happy matter. Since the mid-90s, the US Congress’s American Disabilities Act (ADA) went through years of trials and precedent-setting over this question. Why?
Due to the vague wording of the ADA, it offers many legal avenues for people to sue a website which is determined to be a public accommodation. But lately (due to many precedents that have been set) not many websites are considered public accommodations any more. They have to be tied directly to a physical accommodation. So, this took away the fun for lawyers.
So, what did New York do? They came up with their own set of “anti-discrimination” laws, which defined all websites as places of public accommodation. What a gold mine they made for sue-happy and corrupt lawyers.
All it takes is for any or every blind New Yorker who claims they can’t read your site, and you can be sued out of existence!
Our Country is Gravely Threatened by These Legal Bullies
Interstate commerce and small businesses are the backbone of the country. Yet our very backbone is all being threatened by what’s happening in the NY courts.
Here is what is happening.
- Lawsuits by the hundreds and even thousands are being filed by a few law firms (bully-types) representing visually impaired people who live in NY, accusing the companies’ websites of violations of New York public accessibility laws.
- These are always brought against the company without prior notice or requests to cure the alleged violations.
- The complaint alleges that the website is a place of public accommodation, per NY law, and there is a set of New York standards that the website has violated. In other words, the site is insufficiently accessible to the poor visually impaired person who is suing.
- And now the poor blind person was unable to order the water filter (or some other small product) and is so damaged that you nasty website owner must pay and pay and pay till you’re broke.
- The company may not even be able to afford an attorney, but they have no choice. They’re not allowed to defend themselves, and without an attorney (licensed in New York) the case will default in favor of the plaintiff. They stand to owe as much as $70,000 for their grave misdeeds (of owning the website).
- The cost of defending such a case is so high that so far no small businesses have defended against it. The legal defense fees alone may put them out of business. There is no pro bono legal defense available to businesses.
- So, the normal routine is for them to get a defense attorney, be told how impossible it is to fight, and then the lawyer reaches out to the plaintiff’s counsel.
- They, of course, ask for a settlement.
- It’s all arranged by phone. And, the settlement amounts range from ten to twenty-five thousand. Keep in mind, all they’ve done so far is file a cookie-cutter case.
- What if you can’t afford to settle? If you’re willing to share your financial records with the corrupt lawyers they might come down a little in their “price”.
- The other option, of course, is for the company to let the case default and then just ignore the credit hit and bill collectors.
Can we let the bullies in the New York legal system stab the country in the backbone like this?
Right now they seem unstoppable. They’re attacking me, and others who I know, and there isn’t anything we can do to stop them.
It will take a huge push by a lot of patriots joining hands to fix this. Just think of the thugs in the days of Al Capone. How long and how much money and public awareness did it take to fix that situation? Or, did we ever fix it?
In the meantime, if you have a website you need to seriously consider getting an app installed for accessibility.
What About the Congress?
Congress could handle this with ease.
- First of all clarify the meaning of public accommodations in the ADA. This would certainly help.
- Then do their duty to remove disruptions caused by New York laws and courts to interstate commerce. After all regulation of interstate commerce (which would include the internet) should only be in the hands of US Congress.
Why is New York the Focal Point of These Cases?
These kinds of legal-bullying cases are especially prevalent in New York courts. The New York legal system has shown its colors with its vindictiveness toward Trump. So, my guess is this rampant and obvious corruption is of course part of that.
It’s also a sweet deal for corrupt New York lawyers, right? They stay under the radar, because they actually don’t make it to trial. The attack is on small businesses, so of course there’s no way to afford to fight them.
So, right now, with New York visually impaired residents, pretty much anything goes. But who is to say that other states won’t copycat the NY state laws and offer more of the same “for” their residents.
Was a Law Broken by the Defendant?
No. First of all, the defendant (website owner) had no intention to discriminate and would have happily helped the visually impaired “customer” if they were given a chance. (Help, was obviously not what the visually impaired person wanted.)
Did the Visually Impaired Person Violate the Law?
No, or it’s at least not provable. People can sue if they have a grievance. They don’t have to actually tell you their grievance in many cases either. It depends on the wording of the law and whether any precedents have been set for litigation protocols.
However, the person would have violated common law for sure. The obvious and most sincere move for a visually impaired person having trouble navigating a site would be to simply ask for help. Call or write the company, requesting they do something to make the website more accessible to them or help them over the phone. Suing like this, as a means of extortion, does violate the normal understanding of good and civilized behavior towards one’s fellow man.
Are the Lawyers (Legal Bullies) Guilty of Violating the Law?
This is actually a strong possibility in light of the fact that they ask for many thousands of dollars beyond the reasonable value of the claimed damages to the plaintiff plus what anyone would consider normal legal fees. It should also be noted that the law firm suing me has generated hundreds of identical cases (different lawyers / same law firm). And, the plaintiff has filed thirty or so cases, all with the same story-line. Actually, the lawyer who filed my case quit before the complaint was even served to me. I wonder what that story was.
The exorbitant sums asked as settlement could be determined to be an act of racketeering, which is a felony. However to bring this to trial as such would take many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, the likelihood of the small website-owner to use the plaintiff’s lawyer’s act of racketeering against them to make a counterclaim is probably zero. This would be like fighting “Al Capone.”
How to Solve the Legal-Bullying Problem
I’m doing the first step in solving the problem by bringing it to the attention of as many ordinary citizens as I can (through my website and other information boards).
But beyond this there is much that can be done.
- Challenge the complaint in court: All it will take is for one legal team to challenge the NY courts in one of these cases. If you are a New York lawyer reading this maybe you could do it. (Or someone with a lot of money.)
- The US Congress has the legal power (with the swoop of a pen) to invalidate any state’s attempt to usurp their jurisdiction over internet commerce or accessibility.
- Congress is also long overdue for challenging New York State’s rights to regulate internet commerce. The internet (online stores in particular) is clearly part of inter-state commerce and so is under only the purview of the United States.
- If you are in Congress, you could work on this, but also Congress needs to clarify the ADA and definition of public accommodation. They should have done this years ago.
- Every person reading this article can write their representatives in both the US House and Senate about this very real threat to all of us.
Also, Share This Article
If you have your own platform for reaching ordinary citizens, you have my permission to copy/paste or link to this post (which ever works best for you) in order to spread the word. What if every US Congressperson got hundreds of similar requests to solve this problem?
Or, if you otherwise share this article somehow, we can reach more people.
People working together is what the foundation of our country is all about. By working together we become stronger, so much so that we potentially have the power to save our country from getting more broken. Together we are strong, separate and apart we are weak and vulnerable.
Helping Freedom Win
We have to learn how to come together as a country. It can’t be all about what the country can do for you. It has to also be what you can do for the country whenever that’s possible for you.
For more ideas on helping mankind, visit HelpingFreedomWin.org.
