Compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would be improved for small businesses under newly introduced legislation offered by U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA) that aims to reduce related lawsuits.
“Let’s protect disabled Americans without exposing our businesses on Main Street to costly and unnecessary lawsuits,” Rep. Calvert said earlier this week.
The ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Services (ACCESS) Act, H.R. 77, which Rep. Calvert sponsored on Jan. 4 with original cosponsor U.S. Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), would amend the ADA of 1990 to promote compliance through education, to clarify the requirements for demand letters, and to provide for a notice and cure period before a private civil action commences, according to the congressional record bill summary.
“Small business owners face tremendous challenges to keep the doors open and should be protected from serial litigants trying to exploit laws, like the ADA, for personal gain,” said Rep. Calvert. “We can protect the disabled, small businesses, and the jobs they create by passing the ACCESS Act and giving owners a small window of time to address any disabled access issues.”
If enacted, H.R. 77 would allow any person aggrieved by an ADA violation to provide the owner or operator with a written notice of the violation, specific enough to allow such an owner or operator to identify the access barrier. 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 barrier, according to a bill summary provided by Rep. Calvert’s office.
The owner or operator then would have 120 days to remove the infraction, according to the summary, and a failure to meet any of the outlined conditions then would allow a lawsuit to go forward.
The bill has been referred to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee for consideration.