Bill Perkins Quoted in Disability Compliance Bulletin
"Self-assessments, written construction plans can avert DOJ investigations"

The article "Self-assessments, written construction plans can avert DOJ investigations" in the April 12, 2007 issue of Disability Compliance Bulletin reports" The DOJ recently reached settlement agreements with three Manhattan hotels for architectural violations of the ADA. The changes the hotels agreed to make were similar - provide accommodations for the hearing impaired, add roll-in showers to a number of rooms and increase the percentage of rooms available to accommodate individuals with disabilities. These three settlements may not be groundbreaking, but they should have hotels asking: Will I be investigated next?

William Perkins, a partner with New York law firm Seyfarth Shaw, said he finds it atypical that three hotels clustered in the Times Square area of Manhattan all settled ADA disputes with the DOJ at the same time. "We do have a situation here in New York where the U.S. Attorney's Office has been for a period of time reviewing hotels primarily with regard to issues concerning their accessibility," he said. "I think what has happened here is over time, filing complaints under Title III has been made very easy by the DOJ. The process is nothing more than writing a letter to the Justice Department indicating problems that the person has experienced." And once that letter is received, oftentimes an investigation begins. With the number of amenities offered by the average hotel, Perkins said it's not difficult to find an accessibility issue. Perkins advises hotels visit the ADA Web site and use the checklists to self-assess their facilities, and not to forget to use the checklist on accommodations for the hearing impaired. "In each of those settlements, it's pretty obvious that the DOJ went right down through the hearing-impaired checklist," he said.

And, in the same issue, Bill's counsel is noted in the article "Be wary of using 'undue burden' as a defense" : "When a hotel is accused of ADA violations, a common question is whether barrier removal really is readily achievable without significant difficulty or expense, and the inclination of some hotels is to argue that engaging in barrier removal is expensive and would create an undue burden for the business. But removing those barriers has to be more than a mere inconvenience to be defensible, said William Perkins of Seyfarth Shaw. "You really have to show that the cost of making modifications is so out of line that it's impractical." If your business intends to invoke "undue burden" as a defense, be prepared to show tax returns and other relevant information to prove that a change could put your business in the red.