Quote: ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- In the case of 99 ADA lawsuits from one attorney and her client, documents filed Monday show the judge in the case did not buy the scheme at all. Now the woman at the center of the case will have to pay $40,000 in court fees.

In the 31-page document, the judge accused Santa Fe attorney Sharon Pomeranz of misleading the court during sworn testimony and referred to the controversial group claiming to be advocates for people with disabilities as a carnival shell game.

Ninety-nine Albuquerque businesses got served with identical lawsuits claiming that Alyssa Carton tried to be a customer but encountered a barrier, a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Carton's lawyer Sharon Pomeranz filed each and thought she could pull some clever moves. Pomeranz worked with the Phoenix-based group called Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities Foundation, also known as Litigation Management and Financial Services.

She thought she could avoid paying the court filing fees by claiming Carton as someone who was too poor to pay.

Meanwhile, Pomeranz and AID tried coercing quick settlements from the 99 businesses. According to the contract Pomeranz had Carton sign, Pomeranz was entitled to 100 percent of the monetary recovery. A cut of the settlement would also go to AID in Phoenix.

When 4 Investigates questioned Pomeranz in May about it, she accused an investigative reporter of harassing her.

But the federal magistrate cleared up who is harassing who, writing "it appears that Attorney Pomeranz and LMFS are using the judicial process to harass defendants into settlements to obtain financial gain ... and not to remedy ADA violations."

Further, the judge wrote, "As in a carnival shell game, Ms. Carton's expectations for receiving and settlement proceeds was illusory."

http://www.kob.com/investigative-news/co...5/?cat=500

ADA is a classic example of good intentions rolled into a terrible law.

(07-11-2017 05:32 PM)bubbapt Wrote:  ADA is a classic example of good intentions rolled into a terrible law.

Yep.


We had our "ADA compliance coordinator" try to tell us that we had to retrofit one of our older firehouses because it was two stories and the living quarters were upstairs. When asked why that made any sense she replied "Because any possible disabled employees would have difficulty accessing that portion of the building."

As if that weren't bad enough it then took about 30 minutes and retrieving a copy of the physical standards one has to meet to be a firefighter for her to finally concede she was wrong.

Don't you wish the media self policed like us?

(07-11-2017 05:48 PM)Kaplony Wrote:  

(07-11-2017 05:32 PM)bubbapt Wrote:  ADA is a classic example of good intentions rolled into a terrible law.

Yep.


We had our "ADA compliance coordinator" try to tell us that we had to retrofit one of our older firehouses because it was two stories and the living quarters were upstairs. When asked why that made any sense she replied "Because any possible disabled employees would have difficulty accessing that portion of the building."

As if that weren't bad enough it then took about 30 minutes and retrieving a copy of the physical standards one has to meet to be a firefighter for her to finally concede she was wrong.

You're lucky. That conversation could have ended up with "you need to revise your physics requirements to be more just and equitable."