Template-driven Americans with Disabilities Act litigation is on the rise, costing hotel owners thousands
By Cathleen Draper
A crooked accessible parking sign. A ramp with a slope that’s off by a fraction of an inch. Door handles that are difficult to turn. For a growing number of hotel owners across the country, that’s all it takes to receive a demand letter – and likely a lawsuit – costing them tens of thousands of dollars.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allows plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief, meaning it requires businesses to fix or remedy violations of the act. The ADA is black and white – a business either meets the standard, or it doesn’t. But in certain states, plaintiffs can seek monetary damages in addition to injunctive relief; for example, under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, a business must pay up to $4,000 per violation.
Those types of laws, coupled with the technicality of the ADA, create an opportunity for high-volume, template-driven litigation involving accessibility violations. And people are taking advantage, according to AAHOA Member Aarti Soma, a partner and civil litigation attorney at DPA Attorneys at Law.
“Even a relatively minor physical or reservation system issue can quickly become an expensive lawsuit,” she said.
Through major law firms, the same attorney and plaintiff will file claims against multiple hotels in targeted areas and regions. Soma compares these plaintiffs to an operative; one of the largest firms in California, the state where she practices, has roughly 20 plaintiffs used in rotation.
These law firms have been around for years, but there has been a recent shift in who is filing these claims.
“We’re seeing an emergence now of smaller law firms,” Soma said. “In this past year, six new law firms are starting to file these types of ADA lawsuits. We also have plaintiffs that are representing themselves pro se, which means … they can actually bring the lawsuit themselves.”
Plaintiffs leverage online images, reviews, and Google Maps and Google Earth to determine if a hotel might not comply with the ADA. Then, with no intent to stay, they visit the property, sometimes just driving through its parking lot or stopping at the front desk. They take photos and sometimes measurements and submit those images to the attorney, who files a claim. The nature of how plaintiffs find and document ADA violations is why they are called “drive-by lawsuits.”
The most common allegations that Soma sees in “pretty much every templated complaint” surround parking, thresholds, front desk height, and pool lifts – all of which can be easily assessed without actually staying at the hotel.
Missing, faded, or incorrectly positioned accessible parking signs and the striping around parking spots can be spotted from the road or Google Earth. The ADA regulates the force required to open a door, which takes just a moment to assess. Even if the front desk is just a ½ inch higher than what the ADA requires, a plaintiff can file suit. And hotels with pools must have an appropriate lift, and it needs to be fully operational.
The Anatomy of a Drive-By Claim
Soma is clear on this: There are many legitimate claims out there, but these lawsuits are not in the same category as when someone has been harmed by an ADA violation or faced inaccessibility.
“Accessibility is a civil right, and it’s an important aspect of operating a hotel,” Soma said. “Hotel owners should take barriers seriously and promptly correct issues.”
Drive-by lawsuits, she continued, are frivolous, and the motive behind them isn’t to protect the rights of people with disabilities. It’s monetary gain, for both the law firm and the plaintiff.
“There is a significant amount of profit that can be made in this,” Soma said. If a hotel owner settles for $12,500 for example, a plaintiff receives between $2,000–$4,000. The rest goes to the law firm.
Typically, law firms send templated demand letters to multiple businesses at once, which Soma compares to fishing. The bait is on the hook, and the law firm is looking to see who will bite.
It’s a 50/50 chance if the demand letter will turn into a lawsuit. Half the time, if Soma, a hotel owner herself, doesn’t respond to the letter, she never hears from the firm. Half the time, it turns into a lawsuit.
When a hotel owner receives a demand letter, Soma recommends they immediately consult with their attorney, who might have experience with the law firm, understand how it operates, and can provide advice on what to do next.
“Don’t automatically feel like you need to engage with that plaintiff and give them money if that’s what they’re asking for in that initial demand,” she said.
If it develops into a lawsuit, hotel owners must comply with the required deadlines and respond. If an owner fails to respond, the plaintiff’s attorney can apply for a default judgment, meaning the defendant automatically loses. It’s possible to file an extension if more time is needed to find an attorney.
Hotel owners typically settle the lawsuit, often at the advice of their attorney, who helps to negotiate that settlement.
“A lot of times I get asked, ‘If these lawsuits are frivolous, then why aren’t we actually just fighting them?’” Soma said. “But the problem is, fighting them can sometimes be more costly.”
For the amount hotel owners pay for filing costs, court fees, and per-defendant costs to file a response within court, they could have just settled.
“We just want to make sure that our client has the most money in their pocket when they end this matter,” Soma said.
The Pinch
AAHOA South Pacific Regional Director Nilesh (Neil) Bhakta has owned a hotel in San Diego County for more than two decades. In that time, he’s faced seven drive-by lawsuits.
His property is small, less than 30 rooms, so Bhakta has settled every suit: “It doesn’t make sense to spend my resources fighting,” he said. It’s too risky when the stakes of fighting a lawsuit could cost $30,000 or more.
Settling these suits puts a pinch on hotels that are already strained.
“That’s pretty much their profit for the last month or two,” Bhakta said. “It’s straight from the bottom line – almost $10,000, between attorney fees and settlements, going out the window.”
Paying out $10,000 or more prevents owners from giving employees raises, making improvements, or putting their money back into their businesses. Some hotels can meet that burden. Others cannot.
“Now, hotel owners are barely able to make ends meet,” Soma said.
Settling also creates a cycle where law firms continue to file these claims again and again.
“It’s emboldening these law firms,” Soma said. “It’s emboldening these plaintiffs in that they’re not going to stop. They’re just going to continue until legislation is put into effect that will stop them.”
The Path Toward Protection
Compliance is key to decreasing liability. Soma recommends hotel owners get a Certified Access Specialist (CASp) property inspection, which evaluates a property for ADA compliance, flags items that violate the code, and provides recommendations and a timeline for fixing those issues.
It’s important for owners to have their attorney purchase the resulting report on their behalf. It’s then protected by work product doctrine, which prevents documents and other materials prepared by or for an attorney from being used by the plaintiff’s lawyer.
Hotel owners should focus on proactively fixing the easiest and most targeted violations in their parking lots, lobbies, and amenities like pools and gyms. “It’s very simple to fix your parking striping, making sure that you have the right signage, making sure that your counter is the right height, making sure that you do have a pool lift if you have a pool or jacuzzi on site,” Soma explained.
Drive-by lawsuits aren’t just occurring in California. Former Southwest Regional Director Imesh Vaidya watched the issue unfold in Arizona in the early 2010s when he was an Ambassador.
“We had one unscrupulous lawyer that started filing, and initially, it affected a few of our hoteliers, but very quickly it started affecting many more,” said Vaidya, CEO of New Mexico-based Premier Hospitality.
Regional leaders thought it would be a quick fix, but Vaidya found out the hard way that the legal system is slow, and the lawyer knew how to manipulate it. He and other advocates spoke to the region’s attorneys general and elected officials to no avail. In the meantime, the volume of drive-by lawsuits exploded.
The model that serial plaintiffs and attorneys follow is being replicated in other states, such as Texas and Illinois. According to Soma, one of the most prominent law firms filing these suits in California has posted jobs seeking attorneys in those states for that exact purpose.
Firms now use public records and online reservation systems to identify potential violations. And with artificial intelligence, Soma predicts that serial attorneys and plaintiffs will no longer have to do the work themselves to identify properties that might be out of compliance.
Ultimately, preventing drive-by lawsuits will require state and federal legislation.
In the Southwest region, Vaidya and a coalition of other business owners advocated for state regulations. One of the first states to implement legislation was Arizona. In 2017, lawmakers amended the Arizonans with Disabilities Act, requiring potential plaintiffs to provide notice of violations to business owners, who then have between 30 and 90 days to fix the issue before a lawsuit can be filed. They also sought to have the serial attorney disbarred. In 2019, he was.
“Once he was disbarred, that’s when we saw a significant decline in the number of lawsuits,” Vaidya said.
In California, proposed legislation would give business owners with 50 or fewer employees 120 days to correct any violations following a notice. Though the bill, SB 84, passed the state’s senate, the assembly hasn’t held a hearing on it.
“Accessibility does need to remain a priority; however, the legal system needs to encourage businesses to spend their resources correcting the barriers rather than paying litigation expenses,” Soma said. “In the event the business fails, then at that point monetary damages can be sought, and attorneys’ fees can be sought.”
This legislation is known as a “right-to-cure” law, and AAHOA Members are advocating for it on a federal level, too. It’s the best path forward to both prevent frivolous lawsuits and ensure accessibility for all.
In December 2025, Representatives Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Luis Correa (D-CA) introduced the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act, which would create a 30-day remediation window for businesses to address compliance issues. In March, it passed the House Judiciary Committee but has not gone further.
AAHOA is supportive of the legislation, and it’s an issue Vaidya remains vocal about.
“We’re not trying to not follow the ADA requirements,” he said. “We’re just saying give us an opportunity and be fair about it.”
Image: niroworld/stock.adobe.com
Leave a Reply