U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) on Jan. 10 reintroduced a bill to reduce Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance lawsuits against small businesses.
“Small business owners face tremendous challenges day to day and should be protected from serial litigants trying to exploit laws, like the ADA, for personal gain,” said Rep. Calvert, who sponsored the ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services (ACCESS) Act, H.R. 241, with two original Republican cosponsors.
If enacted, H.R. 241 would require any person aggrieved by a violation of the ADA to provide the owner or operator with a written notice of the violation, according to a bill summary provided by the congressman’s office, which said the notice should be written specific enough to allow the owner or operator to identify the barrier to access.
Within 60 days, the owner or operator would be required to provide the aggrieved person with a description outlining improvements that would be made to address the access barrier, the summary says, and the owner or operator then would have 120 days to remove the infraction.
If any of the conditions under H.R. 241 were not met, then a lawsuit would be allowed to go forward, states the summary.
“We can protect the disabled and small businesses alike by passing the ACCESS Act and giving owners a small window of time to address any ADA issues,” Rep. Calvert said. “Let’s protect disabled Americans without exposing our businesses on Main Street to shakedown lawsuits.”
Rep. Calvert first introduced the same-named H.R. 77 in January 2021 but the bill stalled in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.