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Hi, welcome to ACRs educational series on some of the most common myths with ADA compliance.

My name is Tony Guichard, I’m the founder and president of ACR and today we have our team member, Jason James, who handles all of our CASp inspections. Jason has been performing CASp inspections for a number of years, I believe his is down in the four-hundreds. In addition, Jason is also a DSA inspector, so part of his chores on a daily basis are inspecting concrete work, ADA ramps that he sees firsthand, which gives Jason, kind of in my opinion, the cream of the crop when it comes to ADA compliance.

So Jason’s at a higher level, which is why ACRs team is considered to be the best in the industry. So during this educational series, Gigi is going to be posing some random questions, we don’t necessarily know what the questions are, so it’s going to be a test for our experience as well.

So we got to tighten up our belts here today to make sure we’re on our toes and handle some of these creative questions created by Gigi Guichard, who is our CFO. So Gigi, what is the question for us today?

Okay, under the heading lawsuit allegations versus a CASp report violations. My question is this, we hear a lot of attorneys requesting their clients only address the allegations in the lawsuit and not the full correction list that’s actually in the CASp report.

Tony, what are your thoughts? And then we’ll go to Jason.

Oh boy, so I got to jump in, but both feet here. So I’ll tell you what, that’s an excellent question, because when you solve this question, the client now resolves a lot of potential or future second and third lawsuits.

So when we are dealing with the allegations, let me give you an example, let me thumb through here, oh, here’s a lawsuit, this particular lawsuit has three allegations filed within it. Once this lawsuit is filed, you’re going to be inundated with multiple letters and flooded from attorneys and CASp inspectors, and contractors telling you that they can help you.

My opinion is that when an attorney comes out and he says that he wants to sell your case for a flat fee, oftentimes it’s not in your best interest because he’s going to want to spend the least amount of time on your case for that flat fee.

So he’s going to insist that you deal directly with the allegations in the lawsuit, rather than the actual corrections that are performed in a CASp report. The CASp report identifies all of the corrections on the property. The allegations within the lawsuit sometimes may only be three, but that attorney is hoping you only settle for the three allegations of make those corrections. So if they go down that road, then you’ve got 10 to 12 or 13 remaining corrections that you could be sued for by another law firm.

So we always push our clients, in my opinion, to pay attention to the CASp report, settle everything within the CASp report, get a CASp re-inspection to make sure we did our work correctly, but that’s my opinion after being in the courtroom mediation and Jason is also there as well. But you know, Jason, what do you think about the illustration?

No, you’re exactly right and the attorney’s goal is to settle the present case, only.

Right.

Attorney’s goal is not to prevent future cases. That’s our goal. That’s my goal is to show the client where they’re exposed in the future. What could possibly happen in the future and your goal is to fix obviously.

Exactly, well, that’s exactly the way that I see it. So Jason and I are on the same page in this particular myth and to go one step farther, our team, which is ACR Concrete & Asphalt ADA design and build.

Jason is our CASp inspector, in addition to that, we have our legal counsel who’s available in the event that you’re caught up, she doesn’t work for a flat fee, which gives her the energy to work in your best interest to solve everything in the CASp report. So when we’re done and we actually performed the work, Jason is independent, he’s not on our payroll for the reasons of conflict. So Jason is separate, so let’s say ACR performs, the work, Jason comes in, says, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, something over here needs to be changed or whatever, then it’s on us to make that correction.

What our goal is to make sure you have a CASp inspection report, CASp re-inspection after the work and Jason will stand behind that. So thank you and please give us a call if you want to follow up on these questions or send an email and we’re at your disposal seven days a week, so feel free to give us a call, stay tuned for our next question in our educational series on debunking myths.