Who Is Responsible for ADA Compliance in Commercial Buildings?
By Andy Marso
Published May 22, 2020
Wheelchair user Kornel Botosan filed a lawsuit under the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1998 after a trip to a Mexican restaurant in California. In the suit Botosan alleged that the restaurant did not have accessible parking, ramps, or bathrooms.
But Botosan did not sue the eatery itself. He sued Dorothy H. Fitzhugh, the landlord who leased space to the restaurant through a property trust.
His case became emblematic of a common question about the ADA: Who is legally responsible for ensuring that a business is compliant with Title III, the provision in the law that requires “public accommodation” of customers with disabilities? Is it the landlord, who owns the building, or the tenant, who runs the business that is open to the public?
So who is responsible?
The short answer is that both the landlord (or property owner) and the tenant (or business owner) bear legal responsibility for ADA compliance, and therefore bear liability risks for [...]