Our view: Business owners should fix access problems, then resist cash grab by attorney who exposed deficiencies

Business owners in Julian, that quaint piece of San Diego County history, have two big problems: The shops and restaurants in the historical village are tough to navigate for disabled people, and this town disgrace has provoked a legal form of shakedown from a lawyer who wants the facilities fixed, along with at least $200,000 for his trouble.

Business owners in Julian should immediately make reasonable modifications to their buildings to comply with state and federal laws designed to allow disabled people to enjoy facilities that are open to the public. Then they should band together and refuse to pay the $200,000.

Theodore Pinnock, who uses a wheelchair, is the San Diego lawyer who woke up the sleepy mountain tourist town. He says a recent weekend trip to Julian was ruined when he found that none of the businesses he visited were in total compliance with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Pinnock has demanded that 67 businesses make fixes and pay him not to sue them —— his minimum cash demand is $2,500 per business. If owners delay paying him, his price goes up. If they go to court, he says they could owe him $125,000 —— for each lawsuit —— for his legal costs and fees.

His tactics are ugly, but Pinnock makes an important point.

ADA has transformed the nation for the better in just 15 years. Its requirements —— such as blue-striped parking spaces, curb ramps and wider bathroom doors —— have granted no less than freedom for millions of Americans. In California even tougher access laws have been on the books for nearly 30 years.

As a practical matter, decades of highly publicized lawsuits mean that no business, large or small, has a good excuse for failing to open its doors to disabled people. Even last year's Proposition 64, which limited shakedown lawsuits for routine business code violations, steered clear of laws that ensure access to the disabled.

But advocates for the disabled point out that there are many companies that still don't get it. Julian, for example, has long had a reputation for being a bad place to visit if you are in a wheelchair.

Even without the threat of lawsuits, the smart business owner will find ways to welcome the growing ranks of aging, free-spending baby boomers.

On the other hand, society simply must stay engaged in the struggle against creeping legal liability for just about everything. While small-business owners should know about ADA requirements, nobody can keep track of the ever-expanding universe of government regulations.

A key aspect of open-access laws and other well-meaning government attempts at social engineering is that officials don't police the resulting requirements.

Lawmakers generally delegate enforcement to the civil courts, to lawyers like Pinnock and their clients. There is an elegant use of market forces embedded in this approach: Lawyers have a financial incentive to find problems, which in turn gives business owners plenty of incentive to fix problems before the lawyers show up.

The trouble is that over decades, trial lawyers have generally gained political clout at the expense of business. The resulting blizzard of litigiousness has become a job-destroying drag on the economy.

While legislators wrestle with how to limit abusive lawsuits without rolling back legal protections, ordinary people retain a powerful tool: They can resist paying the shakedown lawyers. The reality is that businesses with reputations for paying legal settlements tend to attract lawsuits, and those that fight lawsuits tend to have fewer of them.

The 67 owners in Julian should quickly fix their access violations, if any, and thank Pinnock for bringing them to their attention. Then these 67 should pool their resources to fight Pinnock's grab for cash.

California's legal system isn't pretty, but that's how it works.