A Casmalia, Calif. restaurant doesn't want anyone to forget about their costly brush with a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff who was once named a "vexatious litigant" by a federal judge.
The Hitching Post was sued in March 2004 for alleged violations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiff, Jarek Molski, is well-known for the hundreds of lawsuits he has filed against California businesses.
Some of those lawsuits were against Central Coast businesses -- by the end of 2005, Molski had sued about 95 businesses between Santa Ynez and Paso Robles, Calif., according to the Santa Maria Sun. He settled with more than 60 businesses for an estimated total of $1.2 million. According to one lawsuit, by October 2004, Jarek Molski had filed 374 similar ADA lawsuits.
The lawsuit against The Hitching Post was dismissed in federal court in 2005 after Molski stipulated the restaurant had made acceptable repairs, such as lowering the counter, according to the restaurant's web site. Molski then filed a lawsuit against the restaurant in Santa Barbara County, which a judge declined to hear.
The restaurant's owners spent $60,765.97 fighting the federal lawsuit. On their web site, they explain: "We are not opposed to businesses making their establishments accessible to the disabled, our own mother has been confined to a wheelchair for many years. We are opposed to people and their lawyers using the ADA laws to make a living off of hard working families providing jobs to fellow Californians."
In December 2004, federal judge Edward Rafeedie ruled that Molski, who was paralyzed from the chest down after a motorcycle accident when he was 18 years old, is a "vexatious litigant" who runs a "scheme of systematic extortion" by filing mass disabled-rights complaints. However, in 2007 the Ninth Circuit in Molski v. M.J. Cable, Inc. acknowledged Molski's notorious history as a vexatious litigant, but effectively held that the ADA permits such strategies.
Overlawyered has more information about Molski and his attorney.