The Karlin Law Firm is seeking a court judgment against Andres Gomez who has filed more than 600 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits against small businesses in Florida and California.
The Karlin Law Firm is asking a California state court to award costs to its client, Fast Toys Club, following the May 24, 2022 dismissal of a lawsuit brought by Andres Gomez. It is the 17th dismissal the Tustin, California, law firm has won for California companies sued by Gomez, a resident of Miami, Florida, and who files hundreds of ADA website lawsuits.
Gomez has claimed that he is legally blind, and the websites of hundreds of small businesses are incompatible with the software he needs to use to access websites to compensate for his blindness in violation of the ADA. Among the targets of Gomez’s lawsuits is Los Angeles-based Fast Toys Club, which puts its customers behind the wheels of high-powered race cars at race tracks.
Mr. Gomez claimed he was interested in renting one of Fast Toys cars despite his alleged blindness. The court filing alleges he has not been truthful and calls his filing a hoax. The court filing attempts to show how Gomez has no real need to use special software to access websites, and also shows that Gomez has used this claim to file hundreds of ADA website lawsuits in California and Florida.
“The central claim in this case, as well almost all of his other cases, is that Andres Gomez has significant blindness that requires him to use special ‘screen reading software’ (“SRS”) to read or obtain information from a website,” Karlin said.
One such SRS program is called JAWS. When applied to a website the software reads aloud the information shown on the website. “Gomez complained that Fast Toys Club’s website was “not sufficiently compatible with the SRS that he needs to use,” Karlin said. “These claims are the backbone of his lawsuit (as well as thousands of other ADA website lawsuits which in recent years have been filed and are still being filed every day across the United States, mostly in California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania by other plaintiffs.”
Among the law firm’s exhibits filed with the court is a video compilation showing portions of Gomez’s deposition, prior website accessibility filings, surveillance footage and YouTube postings by Gomez, all highlighting “material contradictions” in Gomez’s prior testimony, Karlin said.
Gomez claimed his vision was so poor that walking or taking stairs required the use of a cane, holding onto handrails, or help of another person. Yet the law firm produced video of Gomez performing these activities unaided and seemingly without difficulty as well as appearing to read the screen of his cell phone at arm’s length.
The Karlin Law Firm is one of the largest providers of ADA legal defense, having represented clients in more than 2,500 ADA lawsuits and claims, and having consulted on over a thousand additional ADA claims. The Karlin Law Firm’s case against the serial ADA plaintiff has been featured in news outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Gate.
Following the dismissal of the lawsuit against Fast Toys, the law firm is seeking a judgment against Gomez to reimburse Fast Toys for $8,512 in costs his client incurred in defending the claim.
Additionally, in his declaration filed with the California Superior Court in Beverly Hills, Karlin said his firm’s investigation has shown that Gomez “has continued to make similar accessibility claims even after this lawsuit was dismissed.”