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Hyatt not
negligent for ADA
attorney’s fall,
jury rules

The plaintiff's lawyer claims
a victory because of the changes
hotels were forced to make

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

A three-year court fight over accommodations for people with disabilities has ended with a federal jury's ruling that the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Hotel was not negligent in its treatment of Randall Martin, an attorney who uses a wheelchair and is an expert in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Local businesses -- especially those in the hospitality industry -- have watched the case because many of them have faced lawsuits filed by Martin for ADA violations, either on behalf of clients with disabilities or because of access problems he says he encountered himself. The jury in U.S. Judge Susan Oki Mollway's court decided last week against plaintiff Martin, who said he fell in a shower in the hotel in early 1997 because Hyatt had not provided the fixed seating in the shower that he contended is required under ADA.

Although Martin lost in court, the attorney who represented him in the case said it was actually a victory. Janice Kim said the case forced Hyatt and other hotels to take notice and install fixed seating in their wheelchair-accessible, roll-in shower stalls in rooms set up for people with disabilities.

While the lawsuit did not specify damages, papers filed later showed that Martin could have sought millions if the hotel was found negligent.

Hyatt's defense was that the 1,230-room, two-tower hotel has done everything required of it under ADA and more, that Martin did not tell the hotel at the time that he was injured, and that any medical problems he had after his visit were the result of his own condition, which keeps him confined to a wheelchair and unable to use both legs and one arm.

Martin testified that he had repeatedly requested proper seating in the disability-designed shower in his room and when a seat was finally provided it was a simple stool. He said he slipped when the stool shifted as he was getting back into his wheelchair after a shower. Later doctors' visits showed compression fractures of the spine and he said he was told there is no cure. Martin said he has had to wear a morphine pump to treat constant pain.

Hyatt's attorney, Patricia NaPier, said she saw the verdict as vindication for Hyatt, which she said has worked hard to comply with ADA issues ever since it became law in 1992. "The Hyatt Regency Waikiki was built in 1976 (before ADA)," she said, "and even when it was built it had 15 guest rooms specifically modified to accommodate guests with disabilities."

NaPier said the jury apparently was impressed that the Waikiki hotel had spent about $3 million in response to ADA.

But Kim said: "Randy Martin won that case before the trial started because he had already forced Hyatt to put in the proper seating in their roll-in showers long ago, as a result directly of this lawsuit."

From now on, no hotel's management will be able to claim it didn't know "what kind of dangers their roll-in showers without fixed seats pose to the disabled," Kim said.

Martin's case started largely as an ADA case but concentrated on the personal injury claim after Judge Mollway found that Hyatt had complied with almost all the ADA requirements.

Mollway did find, however, that the hotel was not in compliance regarding the shower seat, but she left it to the jury to decide whether that was negligent.

Most ADA cases get settled out of court, with businesses making modifications to their properties and paying lawyers' fees. The bulk of the hundreds of ADA lawsuits filed in Honolulu have been filed separately by Martin and attorney Lunsford Phillips, who also uses a wheelchair.

The Hyatt Waikiki case is one of only two in Hawaii that have ended up in trial. The other, filed by Phillips and claiming continued violations at several L&L Drive-Inn restaurants, is a nonjury case awaiting a decision from U.S. Magistrate Francis I. Yamashita.

Yamashita received final written arguments from both sides late last year, after hearings, but has yet to rule.