In Johnson v. 27th Ave. Caraf, Inc., the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals sent a message:
If you choose to misuse the legal system, be prepared to suffer the
consequences. No. 19-14353, 2021 WL
3627604, at *30 (11th Cir. Aug. 17, 2021).
In a thirty-page opinion, the Court upheld the trial court’s
imposition of monetary and injunctive sanctions against a lawyer and his client
who filed dozens of objectively frivolous, identical lawsuits under Title the Americans
with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq. (“ADA”). Each case alleged that gas station owners
violated the ADA by failing to provide closed-captioning to the hearing
impaired in videos that played at the gas pumps.
However, the trial court found that Mr. Johnson, the
plaintiff, and his lawyer “were running an illicit joint enterprise, consisting
of filing frivolous claims, knowingly misrepresenting the time they counted as
billable, making misrepresentations to the court, and improperly sharing
attorney’s fees.” Johnson, 2021
WL 3627604, at *3. As punishment, the
trial court imposed the following sanctions:
Id. at *10.
Upholding the imposition of sanctions, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the plaintiff’s purportedly altruistic motives and found that in the majority of their cases, Mr. Johnson and his lawyer “did not actually seek injunctive relief fixing the accessibility problem, but instead sought only payment of fees which he split with his lawyer.” Id. at *29. The decision underscores the ADA’s primary purpose—remediation of discriminatory conditions—and disincentivizes pursuing cases purely for profit. It is a win for employers and businesses that desire to comply with the ADA.
