The recent ADA lawsuit scare has had some landlords behaving strangely.

One of our clients a few months ago was sued by her landlord for not making ADA upgrades.

This is a troubling turn of events. It’s in the ADA that one’s responsibility cannot be passed onto another. The way the chips fell in this case was that the landlord had his tenant sign an updated lease otherwise he would not renew the contract with her. There was a clause in this contract which stated that she was to perform all necessary ADA upgrades to become ADA compliant within 45 days of signing the lease.

She obviously did not know what this meant.

She signed the lease, and was later sued by her landlord for failing to enlarge the restroom.

In this situation, we do not have a complaint stemming from a violation of the ADA — we have a complaint stemming from a breach of contract.

How everything stands from here depends on what can be reasonably understood by both parties as being their responsibility within the ADA — and if when signing she understood what ADA upgrades entailed.

Nonetheless, tenants should more than ever educate themselves about what ADA compliance means, and in all cases at least 1) get an estimate for the work and 2) inform their landlord of the issues with a report of their shared liability. Landlords are legally required to comply with the ADA as well — but this tactic does provide an interesting twist. We’ll have to see if he is successful at forcing his tenant to pay for all the upgrades.

Thoughts? Comment below, or write us at help@ytaccess.com. If you have specific questions about your own fiduciary responsibilities, you can call us at 866 982 3212.

This following is quoted from the Department of Justice in Full from here:

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/March/11-crt-324.html

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, March 14, 2011

Justice Department’s New ADA Rules Go into Effect on March 15, 2011

WASHINGTON – Revised regulations implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will take effect tomorrow, March 15, 2011, the Department of Justice announced.   The revised rules are the department’s first major revision of its guidance on accessibility in 20 years.

 

The regulations apply to the activities of more than 80,000 units of state and local government and more than seven million places of public accommodation, including stores, restaurants, shopping malls, libraries, museums, sporting arenas, movie theaters, doctors’ and dentists’ offices, hotels, jails and prisons, polling places, and emergency preparedness shelters.   The rules were signed by Attorney General Eric Holder on July 23, 2010, and the official text was published in the Federal Register on September 15, 2010.

 

The department is also releasing a new document, “ADA Update: A Primer for Small Business,” to help small businesses understand the new and updated accessibility requirements.   In addition, the department is announcing the release of a new publication explaining when the various provisions of its amended regulations will take effect.   Both documents will be available tomorrow on the department’s ADA website, www.ada.gov .

 

“The new rules usher in a new day for the more than 50 million individuals with disabilities in this country,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.   “The rules will expand accessibility in a number of areas and, for the first time, provide detailed guidance on how to make recreation facilities, including parks and swimming pools, accessible.”

 

The new ADA rules adopt the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, which have been retooled to be more user-friendly for building code officials, builders, and architects, and have been harmonized with state and local accessibility codes.   The 2010 standards also include, for the first time, standards on making swimming pools, parks, golf courses, boating facilities, exercise clubs, and other recreation facilities accessible for individuals with disabilities. Entities covered by the ADA have until March 15, 2012 to comply with the 2010 Standards.   In addition to adopting the new ADA 2010 Standards, the amended regulations contain many new or expanded provisions on general nondiscrimination policies, including the use of service animals, the use of wheelchairs and other power-driven mobility devices, selling tickets for wheelchair-accessible seating at sports and performance venues, reserving and guaranteeing accessible rooms at hotels, providing interpreter services through video conferencing, and the effect of the new regulations on existing facilities.   The compliance date for the all the new nondiscrimination provisions, except for those on hotel reservations, is March 15, 2011.   Compliance with the hotel reservation provisions is not required until March 15, 2012.

 

“ADA Update” and “ADA 2010 Revised Requirements: Effective Date/Compliance Date” are the first of several planned publications aimed at helping businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and state and local governments understand their obligations under the amended Title II and Title III regulations.   Individual print copies of the Effective Date/Compliance Date publication can be ordered from the ADA Information Line (800-514-0301 voice or 800-514-0383 TTY).

 

For more information about the ADA , call the Justice Department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 or 800-514-0383 (TTY), or access the department’s ADA website at www.ada.gov .

11-324

Civil Rights Division

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/March/11-crt-324.html

How it effects you:

This deadline basically means that the additional requirements for ADA compliance extend into areas that were previously unregulated.

The DOJ intends to publish a small business guide tomorrow, so we will be posting that.  Further information will be available as events unravel.

We keep abreast of this stuff so you don’t have to!

For more information pertinent to Accessibility and the new ADA requirements today, you can look at the resources below:

• California CASp and SB 1608 and Accessibility
• Advanced Rulings for ADA Access for 2011
• Conflicts between State and Federal ADA Law in 2011

As always, call us if you have any questions or concerns about accessibility at 866 982 3212 x1 or email us at help@ytaccess.com

Is your Business ADA Compliant? Learn about the legal liability your business has if it is not ADA Compliant. Don’t get slapped with a lawsuit over something you could have prevented!

Hosted at Four Points Sheraton (5990 Green Valley Circle in Culver City, CA) on Oct 6 @ 730am.

Click on the link below to pre-register for the event!

Culver City ADA Seminar

If you own a business, chances are it’s not 100% compliant. The only businesses which are guaranteed to be compliant are home delivery. Even then, if you accept visitors from the public in your lobby, family members of employees or event delivery personnel (who have to sign in at a counter) then you are technically open to the public.

If you think you are accessible, here’s a few items for your check list.

1. Floor Mats which are secure and do not pose a tripping hazard (glued or taped down)
2. Van Accessible Parking with an access aisle that is at least 96 inches wide.
3. A 6×6 inch ISA decal on or about your front door
4. Signage on the wall next to your restroom centered at 60 inches with raised letter, contrasting letters and grade 2 braille.
5. No door knobs anywhere. No twist hardware for the lock, for the latch or for faucets.
6. All restroom amenities are less than 40 inches from the finished floor. This means the point of operation!

If you’ve passed all 6 of these, then congrads, you’ve passed 6 of the 1300 unique checks that are part of doing an ADA Audit.

His comment reveals something profound about the way we view disabilities in this country: Disability is seen as a private matter, a personal problem that a disabled individual struggles to negotiate in a world of “normal” people, rather than a social or political issue.

From a very young age, Adam intuited that it would be better for him to obscure his ailment than report it, risking the marginalization that might result. Hiding it until he physically couldn’t seemed the best way to protect his normality.

As he grew and became a man, fully capable of expressing himself in the world, his resolve to keep quiet was only strengthened. Though his physical symptoms had been manifesting for years, they became a “condition” only when others were aware of them, at which point he began to get a complex emotional bundle of pity, sympathy and fear from friends and family.

(Read more on the becoming-public of the ADA)

You can also catch more about what the nature of what it means to have a disability and the notion of “non-disabled” is actually a kind of subset of “disabled”. This term has less to do with interpreting the statement as a prediction that every abled bodied individual will someday become disabled but more

to offer a more inclusive expression that recognizes the diverse spectrum of disabilities, allowing individuals who are able-bodied to identify with the reality that disability affects us all. The term forces able-bodied people to put aside our own fears of becoming disabled, and focus on that which unites rather than separates us as people with a range of experiences and aspirations who face innumerable challenges.

You can read more about temporarily abled bodied here.

The new federal standards for the Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by Obama yesterday on the 20th Anniversary of the signing of the ADA by the first George Bush.

You can see Obama’s speech below:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good evening, everybody. (Applause.) Thank you so much. Well, we have a gorgeous day to celebrate an extraordinary event in the life of this nation. Welcome, all of you, to our White House. And thank you, Robert, for the wonderful introduction. It is a pleasure and honor to be with all of you on the 20th anniversary of one of the most comprehensive civil rights bills in the history of this country — the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Applause.)

(Obama’s Speech on the ADA continued…)

You can also read the updated guidelines as they apply to the older regulations. Basically the ANSI/IBC standards of 2004 which incorporated the ADAAG 2004 have been absorbed into the Revised Standards of 2010. Facilities which are going to undergo construction 18 months from this date need to comply with the 2010 standards IF they have not yet complied with the 1991 standards. You can see the text directly below.

Title 2 ADA regulations for 2010

Many of the 2010 requirements are stricter. A major difference is that the 1991 requirement for van accessible space be 1 for every 8 total accessible spaces has changed to 1 for every 6. Another difference is the increase of space required for a side transfer in a single user toilet stall from 3 feet to 5 feet. These new standards reinforce, add or revoke existing 1991 standards. If you are thinking of updating to these new standards, you may not have to. There is a short window for businesses to comply to the 1991 standards before the 2010 take effect. Where the 2010 standards revoke the 1991 standards we can point those out to save you the time and effort of complying to standards which will no longer be necessary. We can help you navigate these and more.

If you have any questions, of course feel free to email us at help@ytaccess.com or call our toll free number at 866-982-3212×2.