Prenda's Paul Hansmeier Has Been Busy Suing More Companies Over Questionable Website ADA Claims

from the count-'em dept

Earlier this week, we noted that Team Prenda's Paul Hansmeier appeared to be filing questionable lawsuits, claiming Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) violations, including over websites. We pointed out that this had the hallmarks of Hansmeier's historical trolling cases, including copyright trolling and settlement opposition: file nuisance cases that appear designed to encourage those sued to just pay up to settle. We pointed out that while there were just two of these ADA cases, since we only found out about the most recent one because it had been removed to federal court, we wondered if there were more lurking in Minnesota state court.

The answer is: yes, absolutely. And it didn't take long. Three more such cases have been removed to federal court, and they're all quite similar. In each case, Hansmeier claims that the websites violate the ADA by not being "accessible" to people with disabilities. In each case, the claims are highly questionable, as can be seen in the two responses that have been filed already (all embedded below). The earlier story involved a dentist office's website. The latest ones are a doctor's office, a bank, and a chiropractor. Basically small business websites. I expect that we'll be seeing many more of these as well. You'd think Hansmeier would be busy trying to defend all of the cases he's been losing where he owes attorneys' fees for his copyright trolling efforts, but apparently he just can't stop filing questionable lawsuits.http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131106/02274525147/prendas-paul-hansmeier-has-been-busy-suing-more-companies-over-questionable-website-ada-claims.shtml