Comment by tim-tday
11 hours ago
There is a special ring of hell reserved for people who abuse the ADA.
Such abuse is an insult to everyone who needs it, everyone who engages with it in good faith, everyone who spends gobs of money to make events and services accessible to those with genuine need.
I don’t rule the world but if I did abusers of protective rules would be summarily executed. (Don’t vote for me. I’ve got a short but significant list of similar policies. Scammers those guys would have targets on their heads, kidnap for ransom criminals those guys too)
I don't agree that using the ADA in this way would be abuse.
The ADA was a rare "great" law, in that it is sweeping, applies broadly to many different forms of disability, and it provides companies very little leeway to weasel their way out of complying. It also provides us with a very, very good generic framework for consumer protections, should we ever get an administration who cared about consumer freedom over corporate interests. I'd love to see other (not disability related) ADA-like laws that compel companies to make other reasonable accommodations to be inclusive of reasonable consumers. All kinds of amazing "consumer bill of rights" regulation could be modeled after the ADA.
If his inability to access a ticket on a smartphone has anything to do with an illness, or physical/mental impairment - say, age related cognitive decline - it is exactly what the law is for. The tweet is vague but he says it is too difficult for him which sounds like a physical or mental issue. It doesn’t sound like he is asking for anything but to be able to use his tickets.
I’m actually not convinced that ADA “abuse” is a problem. I once had to do an urgent web redesign nbecause someone who was “abusing” the system with dozens of lawsuits. It’s actually dead easy to get out of an ADA lawsuit: you just provide a reasonable accommodation. In our case it forced the corporate decision makers to prioritize making the site accessible. We provided a temporary disability assistance hotline, and got the site compliant. The lawsuit was dropped, now EVERY disabled person is better served because one “abusive” litigant was trolling for settlements. It doesn’t really matter if the plaintiff actually had a disability that made it impossible to use the site, at the end of the day, it forced a change that needed to happen.
If this gentleman used the ADA inappropriately to get paper tickets, it would set up a process and precedent for other people who have disabilities that preclude smartphone use regardless of his own condition. Sounds like a win to me…