After a three day bench trial in October 2025 before the Honorable R. Gary Klausner of United States District Court for the Central District of California, Dardarian Ho Kan & Lee, along with co-counsel Disability Rights Advocates (DRA), Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP, and the Law Office of Paula Pearlman, secured a historic victory for hundreds of thousands of persons with mobility disabilities who visit and use the City of Los Angeles’s park system, obtaining a judgment against the City that it had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and California Government Code § 11135 by failing to ensure that its newly constructed and renovated park and park facilities are readily accessible to and usable by people with mobility disabilities.  In November 2025, the court issued an order and subsequent judgment concluding that plaintiffs had “met their burden of proof for liability and relief” and that “some systemic relief is warranted.”  On January 13, 2026, the court ordered direct barrier removal at 8 parks and system-wide injunctive relief requiring the City to “adopt, implement and enforce a formal written policy requiring all violations of Title 24 of the CBC be corrected within 90 days of discovery,” and to “prominently post at the public entrance of all parks signage informing visitors how to make a complaint or advise the City of accessibility issues in the City’s parks and park facilities.”  Class counsel estimate the value of this injunctive relief to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars given the widespread barriers to access documented during the case. 

This case was filed on July 26, 2024 – exactly 34 years after the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act—and alleged that the City violated applicable federal and state disability non-discrimination laws by failing to ensure that its newly constructed and renovated park and park facilities are readily accessible to and usable by people with mobility disabilities. The access barriers in the City’s parks and park facilities include non-existent entrance ramps, cracked and crumbled paths of travel, non-compliant bathroom facilities, and inaccessible playgrounds and play structures, among others.  Not only do these violations severely impact the ability of people with mobility disabilities to physically access parks and park facilities, they also deny them the numerous health benefits associated with park use, including improved cardiovascular health and reduced stress, anxiety, and loneliness.  The court certified this case as a class action on February 13, 2025.