ADA Accessibility Mediation for Hotels and Restaurants
Resolving Accessibility Disputes Practically, Respectfully, and Efficiently
Hotels and restaurants serve people with a wide range of disabilities. Accessibility problems can lead to frustrating experiences for guests, operational challenges for businesses, and sometimes litigation.
Mediation provides an opportunity for guests, hotels, restaurants, and their attorneys to address these disputes constructively. Instead of focusing only on who is legally right or wrong, participants can examine what happened, what matters most now, what changes may be appropriate, and whether they can develop a practical resolution.
Accessibility Disputes in Hotels and Restaurants
ADA disputes involving hotels and restaurants can arise from many aspects of the guest experience.
For hotels, issues may involve accessible parking and entrances; accessible routes through the property; guest rooms and bathrooms; reservation practices for accessible rooms; accurate information about accessibility features; pools, fitness centers, restaurants, meeting facilities, and other amenities; service animals; effective communication; and requests for reasonable modifications of policies or procedures.
For restaurants, issues may involve accessible parking and entrances; routes to dining areas; tables, counters, bars, and restrooms; outdoor dining areas; service animals; effective communication; reasonable modifications of policies or procedures; and other barriers affecting a guest’s ability to use the restaurant’s goods and services.
Digital accessibility also may become part of a dispute when guests use websites, mobile services, or online reservation systems to obtain information or arrange hotel or restaurant services.
The applicable legal requirements depend on the circumstances. Mediation does not determine whether a hotel, restaurant, or guest is legally correct, and it does not substitute for legal or accessibility advice.
Why Mediate?
ADA disputes can involve much more than money.
A guest may want an accessibility problem corrected, assurance that other guests will not encounter the same problem, an explanation or acknowledgment of what happened, reimbursement of expenses, or a prompt end to the dispute.
A hotel or restaurant may want to understand the problem, determine whether changes are needed, maintain good guest relationships, improve employee practices, control costs, protect its reputation, and avoid the time and disruption associated with continued litigation.
These interests can be particularly important in hospitality because accessibility is intertwined with the basic purpose of the business: serving guests.
Mediation gives participants an opportunity to consider these tangible and intangible interests together rather than reducing the dispute to a single monetary demand.
Moving Beyond a Counteroffer Process
A counteroffer process can become narrowly focused on how much one participant will pay and how much the other will accept.
ADA hospitality disputes often provide opportunities for a broader interests-and-options negotiation process.
Depending on the dispute, participants might consider:
- Correcting identified physical accessibility barriers
- Modifying reservation procedures for accessible hotel rooms
- Improving descriptions of accessible rooms, amenities, or restaurant facilities
- Addressing website or online reservation accessibility
- Revising service-animal procedures
- Modifying policies affecting guests with disabilities
- Improving communication procedures
- Training employees and managers
- Designating an employee or manager to handle accessibility concerns
- Establishing procedures for responding promptly when accessibility problems arise
- Creating realistic schedules for agreed modifications
- Establishing methods for confirming that agreed work has been completed
- Addressing appropriate monetary issues
- Combining operational changes with monetary terms
These are possibilities, not prescriptions. The participants decide which issues matter and whether a proposed agreement meets their needs.
Preparing for an ADA Hospitality Mediation
Preparation before a mediation session is particularly important.
Participants and attorneys may want to identify precisely what accessibility problems are disputed and gather the information necessary to understand them. Depending on the case, useful information might include photographs, measurements, architectural plans, reservation records, guest communications, employee communications, policies, training materials, website information, invoices, and information about changes already made.
The participants also may need to determine whether an architect, accessibility consultant, digital accessibility specialist, contractor, or other expert can help clarify technical questions or evaluate possible solutions.
Preparation should address interests as well as legal positions. This preparation can make the mediation session substantially more productive.
Considering the Costs and Risks of Continued Litigation
When a dispute is already in litigation, settlement decisions should reflect more than predictions about who might prevail in court.
Participants and their attorneys can consider expected court outcomes, attorneys’ fees and other litigation expenses, time, uncertainty, possible enforcement issues, management distraction, effects on reputation and business relationships, privacy concerns, stress, and the opportunity costs of continuing the dispute.
Designing an Accessible Mediation Process
A mediation concerning accessibility should itself be accessible.
Before the session, the mediator should identify whether participants need accommodations or communication assistance to participate effectively.
Depending on individual needs, arrangements might include an accessible meeting location, remote participation, interpreters, captioning, accessible electronic documents, assistive technology, additional breaks, modified scheduling, or other appropriate measures.
The process should enable participants to understand the discussion, communicate effectively, consider proposals, consult with attorneys or advisers, and make their own decisions about whether to reach an agreement.
From a Single Dispute to Better Practices
One of mediation’s potential benefits in hotel and restaurant accessibility disputes is the opportunity to address both the immediate problem and the conditions that produced it.
A dispute about one guest room might identify a problem in reservation procedures.
A restaurant access dispute might reveal that employees need clearer guidance about accommodating guests with disabilities.
A service-animal dispute might identify inconsistent employee training.
A complaint about online information might reveal that guests cannot reliably determine whether a property will meet their accessibility needs before arriving.
Resolving these underlying problems may benefit the guest, the business, and future customers.
Making an Informed Decision
A good mediation does not require participants to agree.
It gives them a structured opportunity to understand the dispute, exchange needed information, consider each other’s perspectives, identify their most important interests, evaluate the consequences of continuing the dispute, explore realistic options, and decide for themselves whether an agreement is preferable.
For hotels and restaurants, that process can produce resolutions that address the immediate dispute while improving accessibility, guest service, and procedures for handling future accessibility concerns.
Discuss an ADA Hotel or Restaurant Mediation
We mediate ADA accessibility disputes involving hotels and restaurants.
If you are a guest, attorney, hotel or restaurant representative, insurer, claims professional, or other participant dealing with an accessibility dispute, contact us to discuss whether mediation would be appropriate.
[Request a Mediation Consultation]
This page provides general information about mediation. It does not provide legal advice, accessibility advice, or a determination that any hotel, restaurant, website, facility, policy, or practice does or does not comply with the ADA or other applicable law.