"You basically have to take the law into your own hands," said Mehrban, whose dozen or so disabled clients provide 90% of his practice. "The ADA was enacted with the idea that the mere fear of litigation would shock people into compliance. But it hasn't."
California is one of the few states to put teeth into the disabilities law by mandating penalties from businesses or government entities whose premises impede the disabled.
"Confined to a wheelchair in California?" Mehrban asks potential clients on his website, www.mehrban.com. "You may be entitled to $1,000 each time you can't use something at a business because of your disability."
If someone in a wheelchair has been doing laundry once a month for a year at a laundromat where the paper-towel dispenser is too high, "you're entitled to $12,000," the lawyer advertises.
Serial litigants have cut a swath across the state, targeting family-run restaurants, boutiques, bowling alleys and wineries.
"He might as well have had a gun and asked me for $1,000 when he came in," Paul Venetos, owner of Anaheim's Varsity Burgers, said of an April visit by Mundy that led to a lawsuit over a condiments counter that was half an inch too high.
The burger joint's security camera recorded Mundy wheeling in, looking around for a few minutes then leaving without perusing a menu or attempting to order, Venetos said. He believes Mundy came in only to look for a chink in his ADA armor.
"This hurts their cause," Venetos said of the disabled suing proprietors who are making good-faith efforts to meet ADA standards. "It's a bad thing to say, but you feel wary when you see someone come in who is handicapped, someone you've never seen before. You wonder if they are going to try to do something that is basically extortion."
Long Beach attorney Ted Batsakis has had four clients sued for ADA infractions over the past few months. He calls the litigation "an old Chicago-style shakedown." Like his clients, Batsakis said the law would be more just if it gave businesses 30 or 60 days to fix the problems.
Absent that warning period, attorneys often advise their clients to pay the litigants a few thousand dollars to drop the suit, even if they believe they haven't violated the law.
But some attorneys are less willing to capitulate.
When Mundy sued Culver City gas station owner Azizedin Taghizadeh in September, demanding $1,000 and attorney fees for each alleged violation encountered during a July 18 visit, attorney Bert Rogal decided to push back.
