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West Palm Beach Litigant Aims To Clear Path For Disabled

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The Associated Press

Published: May 13, 2008

Updated: 05/13/2008 12:33 am

WEST PALM BEACH - Don't let the wheelchair fool you. Allen Fox is a one-man demolition crew.

Just ask the nearly 140 targets of his wrath. With rare exception, they have been forced to spend thousands of dollars to rip out, tear down, rebuild or renovate their businesses after the 65-year-old suburban West Palm Beach man confronted barriers that made it difficult, if not impossible, for him to get inside.

"He's a maverick," says attorney Samuel Aurilio, who has been Fox's all-important sidekick in his crusade to get businesses to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, signed into law on July 26, 1990.

Others who have sparred with Fox use far less generous terms to describe him.

"He's what we like to call a professional plaintiff," says attorney Joe Fields, who has represented many of the business owners and views Fox's activities as more of a shakedown than a humanitarian campaign.

After six years and 139 lawsuits, Fox isn't surprised - or dismayed - by such assertions.

"I have no problem being accused of being a professional whatever," says Fox, whose childhood polio returned to put him in a wheelchair about 10 years ago. "I do this because I don't want the disabled people who come after me to go through what I've had to go through."

For people like Fox, filing the lawsuits poses little risk. Aurilio takes the cases on a contingency basis. If he loses, which is rare, Fox doesn't have to pay. If he wins, the business pays Aurilio's fees. The lawsuits rarely go to trial. In pretrial settlements, business owners agree to renovate their stores and pay Aurilio's fees.

"It's a racket," says Miami attorney Mathew Weinstein, who has represented business owners in lawsuits filed by the Fox-Aurilio team.

Aurilio, who has filed 274 ADA cases in Florida, including Fox's, laments that a few attorneys have given all of those who fight for the disabled a bad name. Faced with an onslaught of ADA cases filed by the same groups or individuals, some judges have sought to curb how much attorneys can make. A federal judge in Tampa, for instance, demands that he approve any settlement agreement that involves attorney fees.

For years, Congress has flirted with changing the law, including several efforts to require businesses be alerted of violations and be given time to correct them before a lawsuit could be filed.

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