i can't wait to see how the city handles losing in court. from what i've seen in the news ADA suits are hard for the defendants to win. what is precedent like Lil?
Hmmm . . . I don't really know. I haven't had much to do with the ADA since I took Constitutional Law in law school. Its not clear what the standard of review is under the ADA, so if it was subject to a serious constitutional challenge, that would have to be settled. Though there's a good arguement that even under "rational basis" review, it would go down . . .
However, I do know that the DOJ has said that it views discrimination against the owners of service dogs because of BSL has breach of the ADA, and its regulations implementing the ADA And I think they'd win on that . . . after all, service animals are allowed all sorts of places that animals usually aren't, overriding all SORTS of local laws. They are going to have a really hard time saying that their right to exclude pit bulls trumps his right to have his service dog, when that same right lets him do things like take his dog on a plane or into a grocery store. So unless they really want to get into a constitutional spat with the DOJ, and really, seriously want to argue that they can discriminate against disabled people on the basis of the breed of dog they have . . .
I don't know the precedent well, but I know *I* wouldn't want to pick that fight.