I was giving serious consideration to blogging on Stragapede v. City of Evanston, Illinois. After all, it isn’t very far from where I grew up, and I have all kinds of family connections to Northwestern University. So, I spent a lot of time in Evanston, including attending many a Northwestern University athletic event. However,
Illinois
Undue Hardship in the Financial Sense: A Viable Defense?
This blog entry can be divided neatly into two parts. In the first part, I play a game of true false based upon the issues that arose in the recent case of Attiiogbe-Tay v. Southeast Rolling Hills LLC, which recently came down from the United States District Court of Minnesota. The second part explores…
Getting to first base: surviving a motion to dismiss
In law school, we learn that the federal system is a notice pleading jurisdiction. The idea behind notice pleading is that you make a general statement as to what the case is about if you are a plaintiff and then the rest is up to discovery. Once discovery is done you can go with the…
Are public colleges and public universities immune from suit as a result of sovereign immunity in ADA matters
In a previous blog entry, the principle of sovereign immunity and how they might apply to a County was discussed. What wasn’t discussed, was whether sovereign immunity would apply to a public university or public college. A case that addresses this is Doe v. Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska, 280…
ADA compliance as a nondelegable duty
People who are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) have an obligation to comply with its myriad requirements. The question becomes can that obligation be delegated to someone else? That is, let’s say you are a major hotel and you are building out/renovating the hotel in a big way. You hire a firm…
Sovereign immunity and persons with disabilities
Sovereign immunity is enormously complicated. What it is, is a principle from which the founding fathers took from England that says a sovereign cannot be sued for damages without its consent. This principal goes way back, and also can be found in the 11th amendment to the United States Constitution. The language of the 11th…