Class Action Alleges Bed Heights at Some Concord Hospitality Enterprises-Run Hotels Inaccessible to Wheelchair, Scooter Users

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A number of hotels operated nationwide by Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company have purportedly accessible rooms with bed sleeping surfaces that are too high to be accessible to wheelchair or scooter users, a proposed class action alleges.

The 18-page lawsuit, filed October 9 in Pennsylvania federal court, claims the bed heights at no fewer than 15 of Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company’s hotels make it “virtually impossible for a wheelchair user like [the] Plaintiff who has limited use of his arms and legs to independently transfer from his wheelchair to the bed surface.”

“This is because of the disparity in the height of a typical wheelchair (18-20 inches) and the height of the mattress surface (25-30 inches or higher),” according to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) complaint. “This phenomenon can cause an otherwise accessible hotel room to be utterly inaccessible.” 

The plaintiff is described in the lawsuit as dependent on a wheelchair for mobility as the result of an illness that necessitated the above-the-knee amputation of his legs. According to the suit, the man, from time to time, stays at hotels in accessible rooms with features meant to accommodate his mobility impairment.

Over the last decade, however, hotel bed heights, i.e. the distance from the top of a mattress to the floor, in both accessible and non-accessible rooms have increased “in response to customer preference,” the lawsuit says. Whereas hotel bed heights used to be roughly 21 inches from the floor, and perhaps not an issue for an individual whose wheelchair has a height of approximately 18 inches, bed heights “are now often times 25-30 inches or higher from the floor,” the lawsuit relays.

According to the case, the existence of this issue is “well-known in the hospitality industry,” and though many of Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company’s peers have addressed, or are planning to address, the concern, the defendant, which operates a portfolio of more than 100 hotels in North America, has yet to do so. Under Title III of the ADA, it is unlawful for a hotel operator to fail to provide guest rooms that lack accessible sleeping services, the suit alleges. From the case: 

“In failing to provide guest rooms with accessible sleeping surfaces, Defendant has engaged in illegal discrimination, excluded and deterred individuals with disabilities from patronizing Defendant’s hotels (including Plaintiff), and denied individuals with disabilities full and equal access to the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages and accommodations that Defendant offers to the public.”

The plaintiff claims he called the defendant’s Hyatt House Pittsburgh location and was told the hotel provides for guests “accessible” rooms with a sleeping surface roughly 27 inches from the floor. The man claims that although he can safely, easily and independently transfer horizontally from his wheelchair to dining chairs, toilet seats, benches, and other surfaces, doing so is more difficult, and precarious, when the distance between his wheelchair and the surface requires him to hoist himself up using primarily upper body strength. 

“Plaintiff risks injury due to falling or straining his shoulders when transferring to higher horizontal surfaces, such as the beds in the purportedly accessible rooms in the Hyatt House Pittsburgh; he has fallen while attempting to transfer from his wheelchair to a hotel bed,” the suit says. 

The lawsuit aims to represent all individuals who use wheelchairs or scooters for mobility and who have been, or in the future will be denied the full and equal enjoyment of accessible sleeping surfaces at hotels owned, operated and/or controlled by Concord Hospitality Enterprises Company.

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