This Supreme Court case could change how disabled Americans book hotel rooms
Disability 'testers' sue hotels for failing to note if they are accessible to people with disabilities. The Supreme Court will decide if they can do that even if they don't intend to book a room.
Civil rights groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union say testers are critical to enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Opponents frame the practice as a cottage industry of lawyers using the courts to extract thousands in settlement fees from hotels.
"If you have no intent to stay at a property, then access to the hotel is not an issue," said Chip Rogers, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, one of the trade groups opposing the practice. "Every hotelier I've ever spoken to wants to fully comply with the ADA. It’s not their intent to try to get around the law."
Deborah Laufer, a Florida woman whose case is now pending before the high court, sued Acheson Hotels in 2020 after she discovered an inn the company had operated in Maine did not disclose on its booking page whether it offered accessible rooms. Laufer wasn't planning to visit Maine. Instead, she filed a suit to force the company to make the information available.
"Once I needed a wheelchair to move around, I became extremely frustrated at how difficult it was to reserve an accessible room at a hotel when I would travel," Laufer, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just before she turned 40, told the high court. When she could book an accessible room, she said, sometimes it wouldn’t be available when she arrived.
Disability 'testers' sue hotels for failing to note if they are accessible to people with disabilities. The Supreme Court will decide if they can do that even if they don't intend to book a room.
Civil rights groups such as the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund and the American Civil Liberties Union say testers are critical to enforcing the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Opponents frame the practice as a cottage industry of lawyers using the courts to extract thousands in settlement fees from hotels.
"If you have no intent to stay at a property, then access to the hotel is not an issue," said Chip Rogers, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, one of the trade groups opposing the practice. "Every hotelier I've ever spoken to wants to fully comply with the ADA. It’s not their intent to try to get around the law."
Deborah Laufer, a Florida woman whose case is now pending before the high court, sued Acheson Hotels in 2020 after she discovered an inn the company had operated in Maine did not disclose on its booking page whether it offered accessible rooms. Laufer wasn't planning to visit Maine. Instead, she filed a suit to force the company to make the information available.
"Once I needed a wheelchair to move around, I became extremely frustrated at how difficult it was to reserve an accessible room at a hotel when I would travel," Laufer, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just before she turned 40, told the high court. When she could book an accessible room, she said, sometimes it wouldn’t be available when she arrived.
