Business owners in Nevada have a responsibility to the public to make sure their facilities are accessible to people with disabilities. According to the Department of Justice, the federal law that regulates this is the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Title III Regulations section of the law prevents discrimination against those with disability through a lack of accommodations in public and commercial facilities. The goal is to ensure that those design guidelines from the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board and the ADA’s accessibility standards are consistent and enforceable.
Although the ADA’s specifications are designed to protect those with disabilities, some people have used the letter of the law to attack businesses through litigation. According to Contact 13 News, the Nevada Attorney General has filed a motion to attempt to stop a man who has sued 275 local businesses for violating the ADA standards for the design of public facilities.
Those who believe that a company is not compliant with the standards must first file a complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission. However, the AG’s motion states that the plaintiff has filed no such complaint. The AG puts forward the intent to ensure that the authority of the NERC to enforce compliance with the design standards, which is vested by both state and federal law, is not circumvented.
Many businesses have settled with the plaintiff rather than go to court because the ADA requires them to pay attorney fees and court costs if they lose the case, and settling is often less expensive. The plaintiff is not actually entitled to any of the thousands of dollars in settlements he has received so far, and the AG seeks to consolidate the more than 150 cases that have not yet been settled and intervene on the companies’ behalf.
