Supreme Court Case to begin Oral Arguments on October 4th
Beginning October 4, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) case with critical implications for individuals enforcing federal civil rights laws. The case involves a challenge to over 40 years of precedent establishing that civil rights “testers” – people who intentionally investigate and challenge discrimination – can bring a lawsuit to enforce civil rights laws, like the ADA. Civil rights advocates have long used testers to uncover unlawful discrimination in areas like housing and transportation. Read the friend-of-the-court brief.
The case regards Deborah Laufer, a woman from Florida who uses a wheelchair and has a visual impairment. As a civil rights tester, she reviews hotel websites looking for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that hotels disclose sufficient detail on the features of their properties so that people with disabilities can know whether they can safely access them. This includes whether a person in a wheelchair can get in the door to the hotel, or into the room itself; whether the room has an accessible bathroom with grab bars and a roll-in shower; and whether the bed be at the height that it is possible to transfer to.
Laufer sued Acheson Hotels, which operates a small hotel in Maine, after finding that the hotel’s website did not identify accessible rooms, provide an option for booking an accessible room, or include sufficient information on the hotel’s accessibility. Acheson Hotels moved to dismiss the case, arguing that Laufer lacked standing to sue because she had no intention of visiting the hotel. A federal district court agreed, but the decision was reversed by the First Circuit. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that Laufer had standing to sue in federal court and had standing to pursue injunctive relief. Acheson Hotels asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the First Circuit’s decision. On March 27, 2023 the Supreme Court announced that it would consider the case beginning October 4th.
The Legal Defense Fund, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and 17 other disability and civil rights organizations - including the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Maine, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Lambda Legal - have just filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in this case that defends testing as essential to the enforcement of the ADA and argues that eliminating tester standing would frustrate the ADA’s goal of equal opportunity. The brief discusses how unequal treatment has long been recognized as the sort of harm that can be remedied in court and explains how an individual’s motive, or status as a “tester,” does not change that.
If successful, Acheson Hotel’s case in the Supreme Court will make it even harder for people with disabilities to enforce their rights and bring businesses into compliance with the ADA.
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