Federal Judge Rejects Plaintiff’s Attempt to Inflate Unruh Act Statutory Damages by Making Multiple Visits to Business | ADA Title III

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Federal Judge Rejects Plaintiff’s Attempt to Inflate Unruh Act Statutory Damages by Making Multiple Visits to Business

By Seyfarth Shaw LLP on June 25, 2021
Posted in ADA Title III, Physical Accessibility

By Eden Anderson

Seyfarth Synopsis: A federal judge precluded the plaintiff from multiplying his statutory damages under the Unruh Act by his alleged number of visits to the defendant’s business.

California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (“Unruh Act”) provides for the recovery of the greater of actual damages or $4,000 in statutory damages for “each particular occasion” of access denial.  (Civil Code § 55.56(f).)  Citing this statutory language, plaintiffs in disability access litigation frequently allege multiple visits to (or deterrence from visiting) a defendant’s property and cite the frequency of their visits as a basis for making unreasonable settlement demands.  For example, if a plaintiff claims to have visited a property on 15 occasions and encountered access barriers on each occasion, they will demand $60,000 plus attorneys’ fees to settle.

While some judges have awarded such relief, on June 16, 2021, Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California issued an order in Johnson v. [...]

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