Supreme Court to take case of Americans with Disabilities Act "tester" of hotels

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

A couple years ago we had a guy going around filing lawsuits against virtually every business in South Lake Tahoe over perceived ADA violations.  The law is a good one, but there are grifters who abuse it to make it their primary income source.

See also: copyright trolls.  This very forum became a victim of at least one of those.

Unlike copyright trolls though, someone who does this with the ADA is doing a public service. Nothing but respect and admiration for them!

Not if the plaintiffs are acting in bad faith to make a profit.

You could just as easily say that a copyright troll is simply preserving intellectual property rights.

If the businesses are not accessible, making them become that way is generally good.

The fact that there's apparently no federal agency with regularly-used enforcement power for ADA compliance strikes me as part of the problem here. This isn't the sort of thing that should have to rely on private individuals having standing to sue businesses.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Idk I think it's pretty obvious she has standing here - she's disabled. I don't think it matters whether or not she intends to visit the hotels.

How are you injured by the mere existence of a non-accessible property you never intend to visit?

Because it reduces your options in the event of a potential future visit. Right now she has no intention of visiting those hotels, but she may need to visit a hotel in the future. And if the number of hotels that are accessible to her are limited, then she is injured. I just don't buy that we have to wait until she actually makes the trip.

Court has repeatedly rejected that theory of standing — you may need to do a lot of things in the future. Injury needs to be concrete. Otherwise you could concoct a hypothetical scenario that would let you sue over pretty much anything (such as, for instance, whether or not mifepristone should be legal).

I do think Ferguson has identified a broader problem with the whole treatment of standing here, although, as the mifepristone example shows, it's hard to say what other treatment could plausibly and fairly replace it.