At a recent federal trial in San Diego, lawyers for Rosario Juarez presented compelling, disturbing evidence that the San Ysidro resident faced repeated gender discrimination while working for a National City AutoZone. This led a jury to award her $872,000 in compensatory damages.

But the jury also gave Juarez $185 million in punitive damages — even more than her attorneys sought. This is preposterous in its excess.

Obviously, the jury believed the contention of Juarez’s lawyers that gender discrimination is a pervasive problem with AutoZone, and sought to send a righteous message to the corporation. But as the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1995 in BMW of North America v. Gore, the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution requires a reasonable relationship between the harm suffered and the size of punitive damages. Giving Juarez 212 times as much in punitive damages as she received in compensatory damages grossly fails that test.

Unless the punitive damages award is thrown out, it will further add to California’s reputation as a risky place to do business.

Runaway juries don’t just dishonor the judicial system. They can hurt the economy as well.

Trial lawyers’ leader: ‘Jury got your attention’

This prompted a letter saying, essentially, yeah, the lawyers knew the verdict they sought was not legally defensible and would get tossed — but so what? And it wasn’t from just anyone.

Don’t let the verdict fool you (“A runaway jury’s absurd verdict,” Nov. 20), AutoZone won’t pay $185 million for misconduct.

The San Diego County Superior Court jury did exactly what it set out to do when it returned a $185 million punitive damages verdict against AutoZone for blatant employment discrimination: It got your — and the company’s — attention.

But Rosario Juarez and her attorney know AutoZone will never have to pay $185 million. AutoZone knows it too, and so does every other business either operating in or considering operating in California.

This is a case where a citizen jury decided unanimously to do the only thing it could to show AutoZone’s board of directors how disgusted it was by the company’s conduct. Investors were so unconcerned about the verdict that AutoZone’s stock price actually went up when the market opened the day after the verdict was announced.

Nobody at AutoZone is expecting to write a check for $185 million, after a 2003 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that, as a general rule, punitive damages should be no more than nine times the amount of compensatory damages awarded in the case. Appellate judges will reduce the verdict, or attorneys for the company and Ms. Juarez may reach a mutually agreeable settlement to end the case.

So, please, no crying about “runaway juries” and “preposterous” damage awards until the case has played out.

Of course, there is one surefire way to avoid the possibility of facing punitive damages: Don’t treat women the way AutoZone did.

Brian Chase /  President-elect, Consumer Attorneys of California

Hey, California bar: Is this OK?

Now I concede the point that it is premature to worry if this ruling will hurt California’s business climate. But I still find it jarring that the incoming president of a large attorneys’ group would candidly admit that trial lawyers knowingly urge juries to issue judgments that are certain to be rejected.

Are we all now living in John Grisham’s fiction with avenging juries and noble attorneys playing the role of Robin Hood?

Maybe this is just the naive layman in me, but I have to wonder: What does the State Bar of California think of tactics that may be effective but are built on a strategy of seeking jury complicity in reaching dead-on-appeal verdicts?

I went on a fishing expedition. This seems germane:

A member shall not intentionally, recklessly, or repeatedly fail to perform legal services with competence.

And so does this:

A member shall not knowingly assist in, solicit, or induce any violation of these rules or the State Bar Act.

If any lawyer can offer some insight into this matter, please comment below or email me at chrisreed99@yahoo.com.

“No attorney sues under the state’s main environmental quality law more than him.

“These lawsuits all tend to follow a formula: A local City Council approves a big-box development, like a Wal-Mart. A nonprofit with a watchdoggy name sues, with Briggs as its attorney. The developer settles the case and pays Briggs for his trouble. It’s often unclear who is against the project other than Briggs himself.

“To Briggs, a 45-year-old who grew up in San Bernardino County, this relentless string of court cases has made countless developments in California better for the environment. Solar panels gleam from the roofs of Wal-Marts and hundreds of new trees have been planted because of his lawsuits. …

“Briggs’ $1.25 million home sits near the top of a hill in Sunset Cliffs. In the front, it has a big garden with a wide view of the Pacific Ocean. Briggs’ friends jokingly refer to the place as ‘The House That Wal-Mart Built.'”

The hunt for a proper plaintiff

The article dispassionately lays out how Briggs operates. I think most people will consider his approach to be’ fundamentally corrupt:

“The nonprofits Briggs has represented over the years share some striking similarities. First, take their names. His clients have included: Smart Growth Adelanto, Build Barstow Smart, Grow Victorville Smart, Concerned Citizens of Vista, Murrietans for Smart Growth, Blythe Citizens for Smart Growth, Indio Citizens for Smart Growth, Menifee Citizens for Smart Growth, Riverside Citizens for Smart Growth, Rialto Citizens for Responsible Growth and Redlands Good Neighbor Coalition.

“Then there’s how the organizations are set up. The groups aren’t what you typically think of when you hear the word nonprofit.

“Most don’t receive donations. If they did, the money wouldn’t be tax-exempt because the organizations haven’t filed anything with the IRS. Those that have sent tax returns to the state attorney general’s office often don’t list any income, assets or expenses. Many are currently facing fines for not completing proper paperwork. All registered with the state through Briggs’ law office in the Inland Empire.”

There oughta be a law

How Consumer Watchdog-y. How Bill Lerach-y. It’s amazing that there aren’t state laws against being a legal remora.

But Briggs does have his good points. He was a sharp critic of then-San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s 2013 attempt to condition permit approvals on donations to Filner’s causes.

There’s a right way and a wrong way, you see, to take money from developers.

“Lawyers are pitching state attorneys general in 16 states with a radical idea: make the food industry pay for soaring obesity-related health care costs.

“It’s a move straight from the playbook of the Big Tobacco takedown of the 1990s, which ended in a $246 billion settlement with 46 states, a ban on cigarette marketing to young people and the Food and Drug Administration stepping in to regulate.

“There are plenty of naysayers, just as there were in 1994 when Mike Moore, Mississippi’s attorney general, famously suggested suing the tobacco industry. But a number of nutrition and legal experts think a similar strategy could be applied on the food front — especially as obesity-related diseases have surpassed smoking as a major driver of health care costs.

“’I believe that this is the most promising strategy to lighten the economic burden of obesity on states and taxpayers and to negotiate broader public health policy objectives,’ said Paul McDonald, a partner at Valorem Law Group in Chicago, who is leading the charge.

“McDonald’s firm has sent proposals to AGs from California to Mississippi explaining how suing ‘big food’ could help their states close budget gaps as billions in Medicaid expenditures eat a growing share of tax revenues.”

Sadly, many Dems will love the ‘twofer’

This is like a mini-greatest hits of everything that people who believe in liberty should hate.

Private firms that make legal products facing shakedowns not just from trial lawyers but potentially from state attorney generals who are supposed to stand for justice.

What’s really appalling is that Kamala Harris just might get on the bandwagon. Democratic voters have a lot of enthusiasm for the nanny state. They want to tell other people how to live. When they can act in this vein while bullying and legally extorting evil corporations, well, that’s a twofer!

What surprises me is that the trial-lawyer remoras haven’t gone after booze or beer makers. They seem way more vulnerable to legal blackmail than food companies. Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr wrote about the possibility a decade ago.

My hierarchical theory for Sacramento goes like this:

Teacher unions > trial lawyers > environmentalists > other unions > Latino causes > gay causes > business interests > African-American causes > disabled causes.

It’s not a hierachy of needs, it’s a hierarchy of power. I think it goes a long way toward explaining how decisions are made by the Legislature.

Why teachers will eventually bail on bullet train as well

This is why I always assumed the bullet train would die before much of it was completed. If there were no funding from any source but the state government, then teachers unions — as a rival for state funds — would turn on the project. That there would be a lack of funding from anyone but state government has looked to be the case since 2010, when the LAO made clear that revenue guarantees were tantamount to promises of subsidies if things went bad, and thus were illegal under state law and couldn’t be offered to potential investors.

Here’s my piece from early 2012 in the L.A. Daily News headlined “How the teacher unions will kill the bullet train.”

But as it turned out, it wasn’t the teacher unions who first reminded bullet train advocates of Sacramento’s hierarchy of power. It was the environmentalists, as AP reported Friday afternoon, who are letting building and trades unions know their place in the state budget pecking order:

“SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to redirect $250 million from California’s landmark effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and spend it instead on his beleaguered bullet train has renewed debate about the future of the contentious project.

“In defending that part of the budget proposal he released this week, Brown pitched the $68 billion rail line as the perfect way to unite a fractured state and help California ‘pull together to form a greater community.’

“His proposal does appear to be uniting many lawmakers and interest groups, but perhaps not in the way the governor intended. Some Democrats who have supported high-speed rail have joined their Republican colleagues in rejecting Brown’s funding idea, and environmental groups are lukewarm at best on it.

“They say the money should be used to improve California’s air quality today and not go to a project that is decades away from being finished, if it is ever built at all.”

Sayonara, bullet train. It’s good to see you go. And, no, it hasn’t been fun while it lasted.

Every single time Consumer Watchdog is in the news, this shadiness should be mentioned. Instead, the media often passively and pathetically accept the group’s claim to be first and foremost a “consumer watchdog.” The latest example is from the Sacramento Bee:

“A prominent California consumer advocacy group is actively tying a tonsillectomy gone horribly awry to a planned ballot initiative.

“Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo ruled on Tuesday that 13-year-old Jahi McMath, who fell into a coma after complications in tonsillectomy surgery, was brain dead and could be taken off life support. The McMath family secured a restraining order to keep the child alive and reportedly spent Christmas in the hospital, by Jahi’s bedside.

“For Consumer Watchdog, engaged in the latest skirmish of a years-long battle over medical damages payments, McMcath’s case provided fodder for a fundraising pitch.”

Incredibly enough, Bee reporter Jeremy B. White never mentions “trial” or “lawyer” or “trial lawyer” in his 600-word story.

Hey, Jeremy: Context is a good thing!

Sheesh.

But there’s something particularly odious about how Harris has put her finger on the scale of justice with the ballot language for a trial-lawyer measure to up the amount they can wring out of doctors through medical-malpractice lawsuits. Dan Walters had the details earlier this week:

“This is the official ‘title and summary’ of a proposed 2014 ballot measure, as prepared by Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office:

“‘Drug and Alcohol Testing of Doctors. Medical Negligence Lawsuits. Initiative Statute. Requires drug and alcohol testing of doctors and reporting of positive test to the California Medical Board. Requires Board to suspend doctor pending investigation of positive test and take disciplinary action if doctor was impaired while on duty. Requires doctors to report any other doctor suspected of drug or alcohol impairment or medical negligence. Requires health care practitioners to consult state prescription drug history database before prescribing certain controlled substances. Increases $250,000 cap on pain and suffering damages in medical negligence lawsuits to account for inflation.’

“A voter who is approached to sign petitions for this measure would naturally assume that its primary thrust is eliminating drug-addled doctors, and if it qualifies for the ballot, one can be certain millions of dollars will be spent on its behalf to drive home that seemingly lofty goal.

“In fact, however, its real aim is reflected very briefly in the final sentence — to modify the state’s 38-year-old cap on ‘pain and suffering’ damages in medical malpractice cases.'”

Oh, the hilarity: AG’s office administers ethics test

Now there is a very strong chance that a judge will throw out Harris’ ridiculously slanted ballot language. But that doesn’t hide the corrupt intent of our attorney general: to benefit her fellow lawyers, by legal hook or crock.

Here’s what’s funny: Googling “California state government ethics” turns up the fact that the AG’s office is responsible for administering an ethics test to state officials!

“Government Code section 11146 requires all covered state officials to complete an ethics orientation conducted by their agency every two years. The Attorney General’s Office and the Fair Political Practices Commission have devised this core course that may be incorporated into an ethics orientation by any state agency.

“Under the law, your agency must provide a public record of who has taken its ethics orientation. If this core course is a part of your agency’s ethics orientation as mandated by the law, make sure that you are following your agency’s procedures for completing this aspect of the orientation.”

But has Harris taken the test? If so and she passed, she’s since forgotten what it means to be ethical.

This is one more example of a point I made earlier this week when writing about the Bay Area Rapid Transit system: Corrupt, dishonest behavior that would lead to civil or criminal sanction in the private sector is taken for granted in the public sector.

Were she chief counsel for a corporation that behaved this horribly, Kamala Harris would be pilloried, and correctly so. In Sacramento, however, she faces little blowback — and is probably chortling at the brazen way she has figured out how to reward her friends in the trial-lawyer community.

Great, just great.

Few Capitol battles are as heated as the ongoing feud between the trial lawyers and advocates for tort reform. Yet, the two groups have found themselves on the same side of one litigation controversy. Both sides are critical of Orange County Assemblywoman Diane Harkey’s defamation lawsuit against a fellow Republican lawmaker.

In late August, Harkey filed a civil lawsuit against state Sen. Mark Wyland, R-San Diego, in Orange County Superior Court for defamation, presenting her in a false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The dispute centers on comments Wyland made at a summer Tea Party event, in which he allegedly referred to a failed investment company managed by Harkey’s husband, Dan. Both Wyland and Harkey are candidates for the Board of Equalization.

Harkey is seeking $10 million in damages after Wyland’s comments caused her to obtain medical treatment for “severe and grievous mental and emotional suffering, fright, anguish, shock, nervousness, and anxiety.” Harkey has refused to respond to CalWatchdog.com’s repeated requests for more information about the claimed medical treatment.

Tort reform advocates “disappointed” by litigation

Harkey’s multi-million dollar claim for emotional suffering has “disappointed” advocates for tort reform.

“Assemblymember Diane Harkey has been a strong ally in the fight against lawsuit abuse,” said Tom Scott, executive director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. “We are disappointed that she felt this dispute needed to be settled through litigation, and we hope for a speedy resolution that avoids using scarce resources from our state's already overburdened courts.”

That statement put CALA on the same side as their mortal foes, the consumer attorneys (often called “trial lawyers”). Brian S. Kabateck, president of the Consumer Attorneys of California, offered a strong rebuke of Harkey’s lawsuit and accused the lawmaker of having a hypocritical stance on legal reform.

“Some people dislike the legal system until they need it,” Kabatech told CalWatchDog.com. “Diane Harkey’s recent propulsion from so-called ‘tort reform advocate’ to major litigant, filing a lawsuit some would term facially frivolous, highlights the hypocrisy in her position.”
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He added, “Reminds me of the old saying that, 'People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.'”

Potential violation of CA GOP rules

Harkey’s attack on Wyland could result in problems of her own. The California Republican Party could potentially rebuke Harkey at its upcoming fall convention. Under the party’s bylaws, delegates are obligated to “first exhaust their administrative remedies” before pursuing litigation against another delegate. Both Harkey and Wyland are delegates to the California Republican Party.

Section 3.09 of the CRP bylaws state:

“(B) All delegates or Committee-chartered organizations with any dispute or conflict subject to this section must first exhaust their administrative remedies pursuant to subsection 3.09(C) and if still unsatisfied, then subject such conflict or disputes to binding arbitration pursuant to subsection 3.09(D). This section constitutes the sole source of legal or equitable relief for all disputes subject to this section.”

Stephen Frank, who served for eight years as the parliamentarian for the California Republican Party, said that the rarely-used provision of the bylaws could be applied to the Harkey lawsuit.

“Technically, yes, two delegates cannot sue each other — even though it had nothing to do with the CRP,” said Frank, who helped write the anti-lawsuit section of the party’s bylaws.

Frank, who emphasized that he has not read the lawsuit and has no position on the dispute, said that Harkey’s potential violation of the party’s rules could result in a censure or even removal as a party delegate. A delegate must file a complaint, which is referred to the party’s Rules Committee. The committee considers whether to take action before referring it to the full convention for a vote.

Messy intra-party feuds

In his long history of Republican political activism, Frank can only recall one instance in which a CRP delegate has been rebuked for filing a lawsuit against a fellow party member. The provision was originally drafted to address a feud between rival young Republican clubs.

“It was messy and made the party look bad,” Frank said of the dispute. “The intent [of the provision] was to stop those suits from going public, and instead try to handle disputes internally.”

Already, the consumer attorneys have seized on the lawsuit to impugn the entire tort reform movement. The movement is a favorite talking point for Republican candidates.

“Using her office to routinely slam lawyers who represent truly injured and powerless victims, all the while planning to file her own lawsuit, makes a mockery of the entire tort reform movement,” Kabateck said.

By Joseph Perkins

Well, that didn’t take long. No sooner did Chevron douse the fire this week at its Richmond oil refinery before a couple thousand folks, claiming some sort of personal injury or another, started looking for a way to get paid.

More than a thousand “victims” of the Richmond fire, complaining of coughs, nausea, scratchy throats and even “psychological trauma,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, somehow managed to make it to the law office of Nick Haney, despite their supposed debilitating ailments.

Why Haney? Because the all-too-opportunistic Richmond trial lawyer placed two large signs in his office windows urging prospective plaintiffs, “File Chevron Claims Here.” So many folks qued up outside his office he sent five of his assistants out into the streets to handle paperwork.

Of course, the fire at the Chevron refinery’s crude distillation unit (CDU) was not quite the public health catastrophe it was made out be in some news accounts.

While there were scary reports of “toxic fumes,” of public warnings issued to residents of Richmond and neighboring cities to stay indoors, of some 1,700 people visiting emergency rooms (but almost none actually admitted to the hospital, the San Francisco Chronicle noted), the Bay Area Air Quality Management District determined that air quality was safe following the Richmond fire.

It wasn’t Chernobyl, where the 1986 meltdown of the Soviet nuclear plant killed as many as 50. It wasn’t Bhopal, where a 1984 gas leak at a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide’s Indian subsidiary caused the deaths of 4,000 to 8,000 thousands (according to who’s counting).

It wasn’t even Marin County, where South San Francisco construction company JMB damaged a sewage line in 2010, spilling 2.5 million gallons of wastewater. No one died. But it sure did smell pretty foul.

So why, then, skeptics ask, did Chevron set up shop this week in a downtown Richmond storefront to handle the 1,000 or so people complaining of fire-related ailments who contacted the San Ramon company directly?

Because Chevron hoped to head off Haney and other contingency-fee lawyers who view  the Richmond refinery fire as an opening to round up potential plaintiffs with which to extort a payout from Chevron.

Indeed, in no other state does a deep-pocket corporation like Chevron face a greater risk of being hit with a class action lawsuit than here in the Golden State. It is one the biggest reasons why corporate CEOs consider California one of the worst states in the country in which to do business.

In 2010, to cite an especially disquieting example, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury returned an astronomical $208.8 million judgment against CertainTeed Corporation, a manufacturer of building materials.

The plaintiff in the case said her husband worked at the L.A. Department of Water for 20 years cutting pipe made by CertainTeed that contained asbestos. Her claim was that, by washing his clothes, she became ill from indirect exposure to asbestos fibers. Never mind that hubby, himself, remains very much alive and well after years of direct exposure

Now if an L.A. jury saw fit to award a single plaintiff more than $200 million on a rather questionable claim, what might a jury in the no less liberal San Francisco-EastBay award 1,000 plaintiffs?

That’s why Chevron just might be willing offer a few hundred bucks to those who show up at itsRichmondstorefront claiming fire-related medical expenses.

By Katy Grimes

A recent decision by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is about to undo many decades of law, while taking rights away from employers–again.

Using the well-worn “level the playing field” adage, the EEOC just ruled 4-1, that employers cannot use a criminal background check, or a job applicant’s criminal record, when making an employment decision.

Criminals now have more employment protections than law-abiding citizens.

Under the very rule of law they have violated, those with criminal records are now the tail wagging the dog thanks to the federal government.

The EEOC said that while employers may legally consider criminal records in some hiring decisions, maintaining a hiring policy that excludes all applicants with a conviction record is a  violation of employment discrimination laws because it could have a “disparate impact on racial and ethnic minorities, who have higher arrest and conviction rates than whites.”

The EEOC also “recommends” that employers not ask about past convictions on job applications.

In a nutshell, to the EEOC, it is discrimination that ethnic minorities have higher conviction rates than whites, and employers be damned.

Read for EEOC decision for yourself:

“In the last twenty years, there has been a significant increase in the number of Americans who have had contact³ with the criminal justice system⁴ and, concomitantly, a major increase in the number of people with criminal records in the working-age population.⁵ In 1991, only 1.8% of the adult population had served time in prison.⁶After ten years, in 2001, the percentage rose to 2.7% (1 in 37 adults).⁷ By the end of 2007, 3.2% of all adults in the United States (1 in every 31) were under some form of correctional control involving probation, parole, prison, or jail.⁸ The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (DOJ/BJS) has concluded that, if incarceration rates do not decrease, approximately 6.6% of all persons born in the United States in 2001 will serve time in state or federal prison during their lifetimes.⁹

Arrest and incarceration rates are particularly high for African American and Hispanic men.¹⁰ African Americans and Hispanics¹¹ are arrested at a rate that is 2 to 3 times their proportion of the general population.¹² Assuming that current incarceration rates remain unchanged, about 1 in 17 White men are expected to serve time in prison during their lifetime;¹³ by contrast, this rate climbs to 1 in 6 for Hispanic men; and to 1 in 3 for African American men.¹⁴

Employers have few tools left with which to judge job applicants, particularly entry-level or unskilled job seekers. In California, background checks already cannot be used unless there is a job-related reason.

However, any employer seeking to hire a driver, heavy equipment operator, or a manager, needs to know who they are dealing with, and whether the applicant has any legal skeletons hiding in their closets.

An employer seeking to hire a bookkeeper has every legal right to know if that bookkeeper has an embezzlement conviction before making a job offer.

10 years ago when I worked as a Human Resource manager, I discovered that a part-time accounting department employee had been quietly embezzling from the company. She was very clever. She had hacked into the payroll system and hid her theft by increasing her vacation accruals and payouts, and added extra hours onto her paycheck every two weeks. It wasn’t until she got greedy that she got caught because the amounts were small.

My company prosecuted and won a civil judgment against her. The purpose was to hopefully prevent any future employer from hiring her in a position handling money, or with access to financial accounts. And the judgement would prevent her from obtaining a professional license in California.

This was no school girl prank–this young woman knew what she was doing and had very carefully covered her tracks.

With the new EEOC ruling, this woman, who always managed to obtain jobs handling money, or with access to bank accounts, could get another such job.

The EEOC has just given a huge gift to employment lawyers. What a surprise. Even with the EEOC “recommendations,” lawyers can and will file lawsuits against employers anytime someone with a criminal record feels discriminated against during a job interview, whether there is evidence or not.

An employer may fight a charge of discrimination. “During an EEOC investigation, the employer also has an opportunity to show, with relevant evidence, that its employment policy or practice does not cause a disparate impact on the protected group(s).”

However, the EEOC also states “An employer’s evidence of a racially balanced workforce will not be enough to disprove disparate impact.”

But employers must hire legal counsel in order to defend charges of discrimination. And legal fees add up quickly when dealing with government agencies.

Employers are under assault in America, and California employers have been under siege for decades. It has gotten to the point where an employer must keep a law firm on retainer to fight off the hundreds and hundreds of legal assaults just waiting to happen.

The rule of law has just been greatly degraded, and disgraced, again.

By Joseph Perkins

The Consumer Attorneys of California caled themselves the Trial Lawyers Association before a name change in 1995. The trial lawyers just posted a video on YouTube, “Disability Access: Tips for the small business.”

It’s supposed to help mom-and-pop grocery stores, dry cleaners, nail salons and other small businesses comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act and, thereby, avoid shakedown lawsuits by the Golden State’s vexatious litigants.

It’s doubtful CA CA’s video will curb ADA lawsuits, not the least because it’s elicited only 950 views since it was uploaded back in January.

But also because ADA litigation is a lucrative racket for shysters who target small businesses — particularly those owned by immigrants for whom English is a second language — claiming violations of the federal law.

The shysters have no intention of actually taking small business owners to court. They just want those owners to pay them off — usually something in the neighborhood of $4,000 — to drop their ADA lawsuits.

When you have serial litigants, filing a half-dozen, a dozen or more lawsuits each year, it can add up to a tidy sum.

Enter U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat. She recently sent a letter to California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, urging lawmakers in the state capitol to enact legislation to stop the legalized extortion of the state’s small businesses.

“It appears,” Feinstein wrote, “these suits and demand letters are driven by a unique California law that, unlike the federal ADA, permits recovery of damages for noncompliance” with the law. That encourages lawsuits she aptly describes as “predatory.”

Indeed, the state law to which she referred makes businesses deemed noncompliant with ADA regulations liable for penalties of $4,000 per violation — no matter how small — for every day unaddressed.

That’s why so many small business owners throughout the state have acceded to a single $4,000 payoff in response to a demand letter. It’s a cheaper proposition than $4,000 per alleged violation per day.

Support for GOP Bill

Feinstein actually expressed support for a bill, SB 1186, authored by state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, which would give business owners 90 days to fix minor ADA infractions before a lawsuit can be filed.

Steinberg responded that he and fellow Democrats in the state Senate were inalterably opposed to Dutton’s proposed “right-to-cure” measure. Such legislation, he said, would “remove the incentive to encourage businesses to attain ADA compliance.”

The compliance to which Steinberg referred is a state-certified ADA inspection, after which a small business would fix whatever violations turned up. But why should small businesses in California have to submit to such an inspection to stave off ADA shakedown suits?

The state’s small businesses are not the problem. It’s the vexatious litigants filing predatory lawsuits not because they are so mightily concerned about disability access, but because they want money for nothing.

Sen. Feinstein warned state Senate President Pro-Tem Steinberg that, if he and his colleagues in the Legislature don’t get off the dime and protect the state’s small businesses from ADA shakedown suits, “I will consider introducing legislation in the U.S. Senate.”

Her threat has not endeared her to Democratic lawmakers in Sacramento, nor the state’s so-called consumer attorneys, who rank among the state Democratic Party’s biggest contributors. But it is no doubt appreciated by California’s 3.2 million small businesses.