Ventura County businesses face string of disabled access lawsuits

• The plaintiff, Anthony Bouyer, has filed more than 500 lawsuits since 2020.
• Lawyers and disability rights advocates say lawsuits are crucial to enforcing legal standards for access.
• A bill currently in the California Legislature would limit such lawsuits by giving businesses 120 days to fix ADA violations before they could be sued.

Last summer, Olas de Carlos Surf Grill, a popular Mexican restaurant in Camarillo, was sued by someone who alleged it was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The restaurant’s owner, Carlos Reyes, said he had some relatively minor work done to correct the problems, including lowering the sinks in the restroom, and the business's landlord paid about $10,000 to settle the lawsuit.

Then in March of this year, Olas de Carlos and its landlord were hit with another lawsuit, this one from someone who has filed more than 500 ADA lawsuits in the past few years. There was only one alleged violation: The disabled access space in the parking lot has a slope that exceeds the 2.08% allowed by state and federal law.

Reyes said he feels targeted. He’s not sure what he’ll do about the new lawsuit, but he said he can’t afford to hire a lawyer or pay a settlement like the one his landlord paid last year.

“I would have to close the business, restaurant margins being what they are,” Reyes said. “My wife and I operate this place, and we work from open to close every day.”

The plaintiff in the most recent case is Anthony Bouyer who says in his lawsuit that he visited Olas de Carlos “on or about” Feb. 8.

So far this year, Bouyer has filed 35 disability access lawsuits in Ventura County Superior Court, most of them with similar claims regarding the slope of parking spaces. He is even more prolific in federal court, where he has filed more than 500 ADA lawsuits against businesses and property owners in Southern California since the beginning of 2020.

'It's driving people out of business'

The Ventura County lawsuits come in flurries.

On Feb. 1, Bouyer sued seven separate businesses and commercial property owners in Moorpark and Simi Valley. On March 9 and 10, he filed separate lawsuits against Olas de Carlos and seven other businesses in Camarillo, Moorpark and Simi Valley. April 25 was an eight-lawsuit day, and May 9 brought nine suits, mostly against businesses in or near Thousand Oaks.

Bouyer could not be reached for comment. According to his lawsuits, he lives somewhere in California, and he uses leg braces, a walker and a wheelchair.

His attorney in most of his lawsuits, Joseph Manning of the Orange County firm Manning Law, did not respond to numerous emails and phone calls requesting an interview.

Most of their lawsuits end in out-of-court settlements. Those settlements are not typically made public, but lawyers who work on ADA cases say they tend to settle for around $10,000 or sometimes more. At that rate, Bouyer and his lawyers have likely collected millions of dollars in the past three years.

Private enforcement – in other words, lawsuits – is the main way that disability access is enforced in the United States, especially for buildings that have been around longer than the ADA, which became law in 1990.

But Reyes said he thinks the methods used by Bouyer and other high-volume plaintiffs amount to “a shakedown.”

“California needs to do something,” Reyes said. “It’s driving people out of business.”

Pressure to settle

These lawsuits are more common in California than in any other state because under California law, a plaintiff can be awarded $4,000 for each ADA violation, plus legal fees, on top of what the business might have to spend to correct the violation. In most states, the only legal remedies are legal fees and a court order to fix the problem.

Stuart Tubis, an attorney in San Francisco who has represented businesses sued by Bouyer, said most ADA cases in California are filed by “serial plaintiffs” like Bouyer, and parking lot issues are the most common type of alleged violation.

Most cases are settled out of court for two reasons, he said. Most businesses do have an ADA violation somewhere on their premises, especially if their buildings are older, and taking the suit all the way to trial would usually cost more than the settlement, even if the business owner wins.

“There’s a lot of pressure to settle these cases, because fighting them can be really costly,” Tubis said.

Changing the way that the ADA and its California equivalent, the Unruh Act, are enforced in the state is a longstanding goal of the California Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.

“This is one of the topics I’ve had the most legislators reach out to us about because it impacts so many small businesses across the state,” said Ashley Hoffman, a policy advocate with the California Chamber. “It’s tricky because you want to make sure that small businesses are not unfairly being sued, but then also you don’t want to permit businesses to flout the accessibility laws.”

This year, State Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican from the Sacramento area, introduced a Chamber-backed bill that would require businesses to be given 120 days to correct an ADA violation before they could be sued. Senate Bill 585 passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 8 by an 8-0 vote.

Dani Anderson, the county of Ventura’s disability access manager, said she thinks the bill would be a positive step. The ADA and the Unruh Act are very detailed and many business owners aren’t aware of all the requirements so they should be given the chance to fix problems before the courts get involved, she said in an email interview.

“It is unfortunate the issue has become more commonly seen as a litigious one rather than an opportunity to educate and further improve our communities throughout the county,” Anderson wrote. “As a wheelchair user and someone who experiences challenges to access, I greatly appreciate it when businesses are attentive to creating a welcoming and accessible environment for their customers and take the step to obtain input from someone with lived disability experience!”

'Litigation is a form of accountability'

The idea has been introduced in legislation before, and has never gotten far. Some advocates for people with disabilities feel a grace period would remove any incentive for businesses to fix ADA issues before they’re facing a potential lawsuit.

“That would be absolutely devastating,” said Autumn Elliott, an attorney with Disability Rights California, a Sacramento-based legal nonprofit. “What if the rule was, if you didn’t pay your taxes, before anything happened the IRS had to send you a letter saying, ‘Here is how much you owe in taxes and we’ll give you four months to pay it, and if you pay it within those four months, nothing bad will happen’? No one would pay their taxes with that system unless they got the letter.”

Instead, Elliott would rather see every owner of a business or other space that’s open to the general public take it upon themselves to make sure they’re meeting all the legal requirements for access. There are consultants that evaluate businesses for ADA compliance and recommend changes, and California law gives businesses that have used a certified consultant extra protection from lawsuits: They can qualify for a grace period to fix violations before they can be sued, and court damages are set at $1,000 per violation, rather than $4,000.

“There are a ton of benefits, but unfortunately, a pretty small number of folks take advantage of that system,” Elliott said.

There are also loans, grants and tax credits that can help business owners pay for inspections and ADA improvements. Newer buildings are typically required to be fully ADA compliant, while older ones only have to make improvements that are deemed feasible.

Cindy Liu, a Thousand Oaks resident who founded the disability rights advocacy group WeBelong:805, said the best approach to improving access for people with disabilities is to value them as consumers. There are 4 million Californians with a disability, she said, and many more who will become disabled due to age or health conditions.

“People with disabilities have buying power and they want to support small businesses, but if I’m a wheelchair user and something that seems like a small grade might be inaccessible, then I’m not going to spend my money at that business,” Liu said. “To me, compliance with federal law is the right thing to do, and it’s the smart thing to do. … Everyone wins when a customer can go into your restaurant and spend money.”

Liu considers lawsuits, and the threat of lawsuits, an important deterrent for businesses, and she’s against the idea of a grace period like the one in SB 585. There’s nothing wrong with someone filing a lot of ADA lawsuits, she said, because it means there are a lot of businesses that need to be more accessible.

“Litigation is a form of accountability,” she said.

'Fight like hell'

Litigation over business websites is also common, usually when the websites are not accessible to screen readers used by visually impaired people. Reyes said he hasn’t received any complaints about Olas de Carlos’ website, but he recently took it down entirely, after seeing a television news segment about ADA website lawsuits.

The restaurant’s next-door neighbor in Old Town Camarillo is a deli and liquor store called the Cork & Bottle. Like Olas de Carlos, the owner of the property was sued last year over ADA violations, fixed them and settled the suit, only to be sued again this year by Bouyer over the slope of its disabled access parking space.

John Alamillo’s in-laws own the property, and he manages it for them. He said they would fix any ADA issues that were brought to their attention without a lawsuit.

But the way things are going, he said, “I’m going to advise our attorney to fight like hell.”

Tony Biasotti is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at tbiasotti@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation's Fund to Support Local Journalism.