Hit with ADA access suit, Sacramento says NAACP head, festival organizers must pay

Stephen and Bertha Pina, a disabled Sacramento couple, tried attending festivals last summer in Sacramento’s Miller Park but say they were met with obstacles.

At the Sacramento RiverFest Seafood and Barbecue Festival in July, they asked to be directed to disabled parking and discovered it was occupied by vendors, forcing them to park a mile away from the entrance to the event, where they found the regular restroom was “flooded, unusable and did not appear to be accessible,” they say.

At the Sacramento NAACP Rhythm & Blues Festival on Aug. 31, the found all the disabled spots occupied by VIP ticket holders, and the restroom again inaccessible, forcing Stephen Pina to assist his wife to get inside a port-a-potty, they say.

As a result, the couple sued the city and the event organizers in January, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Such lawsuits have been filed the length of California by the thousands in recent years, and typically result in a settlement payout and promises to fix the problems.

But Sacramento has a different response to this lawsuit. Lawyers for the city filed a counterclaim late Thursday in court that blames the problems on the vendors, including Betty Williams, the head of Sacramento’s NAACP branch and a former City Council candidate.

“Such damages as sustained by Bertha Pina, Stephen Pina or any other party are not the result of active negligence, wrongful conduct, errors, omissions, breach of contract, sole negligence or willful misconduct of the city,” states a counterclaim filed by the City Attorney’s Office.

Instead, “the city has suffered damages caused by Ms. Williams and the NAACP by virtue of their breach of their written agreements” that promised to provide accessible restrooms and other facilities, the city’s counter claims states.

Court documents also note that permits for the events agreed to indemnify the city against any legal action and that the organizers were required to carry at least $1 million in insurance coverage.

The counterclaim asks a federal court to require any judgment the Pinas may get to be paid by Williams and the NAACP and by Rick Warren, whose Community Resource Group sponsored the RiverFest event.

Williams and Warren both said they were shocked when told of the city’s move and insisted both festivals had adhered closely to ADA requirements.

“We’re a civil rights organization,” Williams said. “We absolutely would put things in place to make sure we were in compliance. ... Clearly, we did our job.

“How disappointing that the city of Sacramento is suing a civil rights organization that has been in the city for 104 years, one that fights for the ADA,” she said.

Williams added that the Pinas may have confused her festival with another, and said that a volunteer for her group had physically stood in a disabled parking spot a few yards from the entrance to save it for the couple.

Warren also insisted his group was in full compliance,and that permanent restrooms at the park that are controlled by the city had backed up and had to be cleaned out by his own volunteers.

“It’s the city’s responsibility to take care of their park,” Warren said. “We had restrooms out there, we had transportation, vans running all day. We had handicapped parking. ...

“I think it’s a frivolous lawsuit, an attempt to call attention to a community event that’s there to promote common cause for the city of Sacramento.”

The Sacramento region has been the target of thousands of ADA lawsuits since the landmark law took effect 30 years ago, with disabled individuals and their advocates forcing improved access to businesses and government buildings of every sort.

Numerous business owners have complained they have been forced to close their doors because of the cost of such renovations; ADA advocates say their efforts are simply trying to bring business owners into compliance with a longstanding federal law.

But some business owners have complained that they are targeted by plaintiffs more interested in quick payoffs rather than improved access, and they frequently point to serial ADA filer Scott Norris Johnson, a Sacramento attorney who has filed more than 2,900 lawsuits in the region over the years, according to court records.

Johnson was indicted last May by a federal grand jury on three counts of filing fraudulent tax returns on funds he received from his lawsuits.

Johnson is fighting the indictment, demanding information from prosecutors about what income the government believes should have been listed on his returns, and prosecutors noting that they have compiled 447,713 pages and more than 100 bankers boxes of documents in the case.

This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 11:07 AM.