FRESNO (KMJ) — More than 200 small business owners from all over California, including some from the valley, are descending on Sacramento on Tuesday to end what they call lawsuit abuse.
The group want relief from what they describe as “unwarranted lawsuits”, that force them to settle violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, without being able to do anything about them.
“These big lawyer firms, they go to these small business owners and they don’t have the money to protect themselves for this lawsuit”, says Fresno based board member of the APCA, the American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association, Andy Chikara.
“So they give them the lawsuit, the papers, and the small business owners…they end up settling”.
The group states that situations like those mean firms are making money abusing the system as they’re looking for technical violations, and end up threatening the company targeted in the suit.
“Small business groups don’t have any voice. We don’t have any legislators working for us who could communicate with the lawmakers. So we’d like to talk to them about our problems”.
Chikara says they’ve been knocking every single door in Sacramento, and they’re hoping this year will be the one someone will listen to them.
“We’ve been going for the last four years. Democrats started to listen to us, and there are five of the Democratic lawmakers who are willing to take our ADA law. That’s one of the main hurdles we are facing”.
Their eventual goal is to put a relief into the law, giving them time to correct the issue before a lawsuit is processed, which the group says would then take out the incentives to file.
