Constitutional Law

Supreme Court OKs ADA Lawsuit Ban Against 'Hit & Run' Plaintiff & Counsel

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A federal judge’s decision to ban a prolific litigant and his counsel from filing any more ADA lawsuits without court permission has effectively been OK’d by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a “legal waterloo” for Jarek Molski and his counsel, Thomas Frankovich, it has refused to hear an appeal from a 2007 decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld the court-approval requirement, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The wheelchair-bound Molski, who filed more than 400 lawsuits under the Americans With Disabilities Act, generally seeking settlements for alleged illegal business conditions, was described as a “hit-and-run plaintiff” by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie at the time of the ban.

As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, a legal ethics complaint is being pursued against Frankovich as a result of his reprsentation of Molski.

Frankovich generally denied the bar charges in his response and said his conduct “was not intimidating, misleading, coercive, extortionist or in conscious disregard for the public’s rights,” the earlier ABAJournal.com post notes.

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