amazon?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

On Sun, Aug 25, 2019 at 5:00 PM Linux for blind general discussion
<blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
>

> Size of a company makes no difference here because Amazon has far more
> resources available to insure  everyone can shop equally.
> come  to think of it,  could not Domino's argue they have too few resources
> to  accommodate?  They would be wrong of course, simplification is less
> expensive.  But I wonder if that might be their argument?

Domino's petition to the Supreme Court is here.
<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-1539/102950/20190613153319483_DominosPetition.pdf>
(PDF). It has three main arguments: [i] the courts of appeals are
badly split on the governing law; [ii] Congress has never ruled that
Title III applies to web sites and mobile apps; [iii] in any event,
there are no government-established standards to follow and therefore
litigation can not be ended by attempting to make sites and apps
accessible.

On their first point, they are completely accurate and the Supreme
Court is likely to take the case to resolve the split among the
appeals courts. On their second point, this is the issue involved in
the split among the courts of appeals. On their third point, it's a
very strong argument.

On the effect of lawsuits, I'll speak as a retired attorney who
specialized in toilet training multinational corporations from
discharging poisons into our nation's waterways.

Lawsuits can be highly effective. Obviously, if a court issues an
injunction requiring that a company do or refrain from doing
something, the company has no practical choice but to comply.

In cases that award damages, you need to understand a bit about how
large companies react to being sued for damages. You must also
understand that no one is in charge of a corporation. All officers
have closely-defined responsibilities and do not dare invade someone
else's area of responsibility for fear of starting a turf war. When
the company is sued, just about everyone wants nothing to do with the
issue since it could lead to loss of power and responsibility. The
buck gets passed to the company's office of general counsel, who will
arrange for outside counsel to represent the company in the lawsuit.

The general counsel will also prepare a legal opinion on the legality
of what happened. No CEO will take relevant action before reviewing
the general counsel's opinion, and to take any action deemed unlawful
by the general counsel is suicidal for the CEO should a second lawsuit
be filed by someone else. The CEO would be left without even a fig
leaf to protect himself from the board of directors' oversight.

For smaller companies that do not self-insure, their legal defense is
provided by their insurance company. The insurance company also looks
at the company behavior that produced the claim for damages and unless
it is squeaky clean, the company will be looking at an additional
rider on their insurance policy come time for renewal that denies
coverage should there be a reoccurrence of the same misbehavior.

In my opinion, what isn't fair about all of this is the sheer expense
of obtaining justice through our court system. It is a system designed
for rich people. That means that lawyers have to turn down many
meritorious cases simply because they are not sure winners, or the
amount of damages the client is eligible for isn't enough to pay the
legal fees, or ...

Best regards,

Paul E. Merrell, J.D.

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