Class Action Claims Hardee’s Fails to Follow ADA Requirements for Wheelchair Accessibility in Parking Lots

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Hardee’s operator Capstone Restaurant Group, LLC is among the defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit out of West Virginia that claims many of its restaurant parking lots are not wheelchair accessible.

The lawsuit explains that Capstone and co-defendant subsidiary Lund Brown operate nearly 300 restaurants, including Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts and Pizza Hut Express locations, across 16 states. According to the complaint, the lead plaintiff, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, visited the defendants’ Hardee’s location in Clarksburg, West Virginia and experienced “unnecessary difficulty and risk” stemming from excessive slopes in the parking lot.

Investigators then visited several of the defendants’ Appalachian locations and found at least five also violated Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility standards, the case claims. These violations allegedly included:

• Surfaces of purportedly accessible routes and aisles with a slope greater than the maximum permissible 2.1 percent grade;
• Missing signs for accessible parking spots;
• No level landing at the top of curb ramps;
• No accessible aisles;
• No curb ramps; and
• No wheelchair-accessible parking.

The case claims that such violations are widespread among Hardee’s restaurants and demonstrate that the defendants systematically discriminate against disabled individuals. From the case:

“The fact that individuals with mobility-related disabilities are denied full and equal access to numerous of Defendants’ facilities, and the fact that each of these facilities deny access by way of inaccessible parking facilities, is evidence that the inaccessibility Plaintiff experienced is not isolated, but rather, is caused by Defendants’ systemic disregard for the rights of individuals with disabilities.

The suit seeks to represent a class composed of all people with a qualified mobility disability who visited any of the defendants’ restaurant locations and were denied full and equal access to the companies’ goods and services as a result of access barriers. The lawsuit requests a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to make their facilities compliant with ADA regulations and to regularly monitor the locations to ensure such measures are kept in place.