For people with disabilities, staying in a hotel can be a frightening experience. Julie Raiskin, 58, tried to book an accessible room in Chicago, but it didn’t have a roll-in shower. In Washington, D.C., the bed was too high. While traveling, she often couldn’t bathe for days and had to sleep in her motorized wheelchair.
It’s a common experience for people with disabilities like her, many of whom say they regularly experience problems staying in hotels and using hotel amenities.
But most people don’t have the time or resources to speak out about these issues, advocates say. Despite the decades-old existence of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a comprehensive civil rights law that mandates accessibility in public places, barriers remain widespread.
“Every time we face discrimination, we have to consider whether we want to address it,” said Raiskin, the Denver disability advocate. “We can’t address every problem, or we’ll just be doing the same thing all the time.”
So some people with disabilities take on jobs as “tester” – they research accessibility issues and sometimes even sue others to make sure they don’t encounter the same barriers. The tester role is at the center of a case currently being heard by the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit involves tester Deborah Laufer, who claims she was discriminated against because a small Maine hotel’s website did not include required accessibility information. Lawyers for the hotel argue that Laufer has no basis to sue because she never intended to stay at the hotel.
Business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce argue that ADA lawsuits put a strain on small businesses and the court system.
While the Supreme Court may dismiss the case for complex legal reasons, it still sparks debate about how the civil rights of people with disabilities are enforced and the challenges they still face finding accessible accommodations while traveling.
High Court to consider whether disability activist can sue hotel after online search
Hotel reservations are difficult
Raiskin, who also worked as a tester, recalls that only a few hotels had airport shuttles available.
She said she couldn’t file lawsuits against each hotel on her own, but she was able to act as a tester for a disability rights group and call dozens of hotels to see if they had accessible shuttles.
“This has to be addressed systemically. It can’t be addressed one by one,” she said.
Yvette Pegues, who uses a wheelchair, said simply requesting accommodations doesn’t usually work.
In hotels, the bathroom entrance might be too narrow, the bed too high, the air conditioning too hard to reach — she says she usually tries to discuss the issues with management, sometimes sending them a letter outlining the obstacles she’s encountered and how she plans to solve them.
Most companies don’t make changes following this feedback, she said.
That’s not unusual, advocates say, because many companies tend to wait to spend money on changes until they’re sued.
“I think this law is being looked at as a suggestion,” said Peggs, 36, of Canton, Georgia. “People just don’t care. This law makes me feel rejected by the world.”
The feeling of rejection and exclusion from public spaces is common among people with disabilities, said Jasmine Harris, a University of Pennsylvania law professor who co-authored a Columbia Human Rights Law Review article about the struggles of people with disabilities while traveling.
Although hotels are legally required to disclose information about accessibility features in their reservation systems, people with disabilities say they frequently encounter hotel websites that contain misleading and inaccurate information, or no information at all.
Harris said that while not including accessibility information on a company’s website may not seem like a big deal, it can alienate people with disabilities and make it harder for them to book a hotel room or travel.
Some of the people with disabilities surveyed in her article said they had to send more than 10 emails and call the same companies multiple times to find out if they were getting the help they needed, and some chose to stay home because the process was so overwhelming.
“People become prepared to not have access,” she said, “and people reject it again and again.”
Challenges in enforcing accessibility rules
Some people with disabilities say they are reluctant to sue hotels and restaurants because inspectors are prone to criticism and accused of extorting companies for profit, they say, and that lawsuits can be a tedious process and usually don’t result in any money.
Under the provisions of the law, a person bringing this type of lawsuit can usually only seek reimbursement of legal fees and actual expenses.
Rabia Belt, a professor at Stanford Law School and legal historian who specializes in disability issues, notes that some state laws, such as California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, allow plaintiffs to receive damages, and so those states tend to host the majority of ADA lawsuits.
The lack of monetary compensation means lawyers typically get paid only for the time they work, said Gregory Sconzo, a Florida attorney who specializes in disability discrimination cases.
He and other legal experts said it’s only financially worthwhile for lawyers to take on such cases if they are typically representing testers in large volumes of litigation.
Sconzo has represented one client in more than 1,000 lawsuits related to accessibility barriers, and he said most of his cases have ended in settlements and companies have been ordered to fix the problems, such as adding a pool lift.
While the Department of Justice can investigate and sue non-compliance with the ADA, the Supreme Court brief stated that private litigation, including lawsuits brought by testing companies, is a “necessary complement” to federal enforcement of such laws. In their own filing, disability groups argued that the government “cannot keep up with the epidemic of non-compliance.”
But Chip Rogers, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said the costs of such litigation could push small businesses into bankruptcy.
“For years, hoteliers have been subject to lawsuits and lawsuit threats from serial litigants suing hundreds of hotels and other businesses at one time,” Rogers said.
In 2012, there were approximately 3,000 non-employment ADA lawsuits, accounting for just over 1% of all federal civil lawsuits. In 2022, the number of lawsuits is expected to increase to approximately 9,300, accounting for approximately 3.5% of all lawsuits.
Belt said that a relatively small percentage of businesses are sued overall. The increase in lawsuits may be due to the nation’s aging population, which means more people with disabilities overall, and because people with disabilities born after 1990, when the ADA was passed, are becoming adults, he said.
This “post-ADA generation” has come to expect accessibility as a right, and now that they’re adults, they may be more motivated to sue, she said.
Another factor in the increase is the internet: It allows businesses to reach more consumers more easily, but it also means that consumers with disabilities more often encounter accessibility barriers just by being online, Belt said.
Low awareness of barriers
One reason these problems continue is because people don’t understand the importance of the ADA or what it provides, said Jeremy Wariner, 48, of Indianapolis.
He also said companies may not even realize they are violating the law.
Wariner has worked in the hospitality industry for more than a decade, managing a variety of hotels throughout his career, but he said he learned very little about the ADA and how to implement it through formal education or on-the-job training.
He says it wasn’t until he was in a car accident 18 years ago and lost both his legs that he realised the importance of getting help.
After the accident, he discovered that the only automatic door through which he could enter the hotel where he worked was not working. When he asked staff about it, they told him that the door had not worked for years.
“I encounter these things everywhere I go, but I never realized it until I became disabled and had to rely on the ADA,” he said.
Wariner has never sued over accessibility, because he finds the process too tedious, but he has tried a different approach.
A local coffee shop often has disabled parking spaces unavailable because drive-through cars block them, and after discovering the problem in March 2021, she raised the issue with managers multiple times over the course of two months.
Nothing changed, so he filed a complaint with the Department of Justice.
That was more than two years ago, but the issue has still not been resolved, he said.
Kaitlyn Gilbert contributed to this report.