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Kathie Reece-McNeill, standing in the lobby of
Kathie Reece-McNeill, a 48-year-old
She won.
But not before Reece-McNeill -- owner of the historic
Aztec Hotel in
Now she wants to be part of the solution, recently
organizing a group called Access Without Lawsuits in an attempt to bridge the
divide between
The lawsuit that started it all landed, as these things
usually do, when she least expected it.
A former public relations executive, Reece-McNeill had
bought the quirky old hotel in the foothills of the
Reece-McNeill began the laborious process of restoration,
adhering to strict guidelines that govern historic sites. The building had been
placed on the National Register of Historic Places and was given similar status
by the state -- creating a balancing act for its new owner, who said she had to
"painstakingly wait for the federal government and the state to tell me
the best and the right way to do things."
Then along came the lawsuit. In April 2003, with
restoration under way, Reece-McNeill was sued by the disabled mother of a man
whom she had underwritten for an extended stay at the hotel, a favor to a
friend.
The lawsuit, filed by access attorney Mark D. Potter of
Reece-McNeill felt stuck. "I wasn't in compliance
because the federal and the state told me I couldn't be in compliance until we
go through this process," she said, referring to the historic preservation
rules.
The attorney demanded $18,000, she said, and her own
attorney suggested she could probably settle for $10,000.
Instead, she decided to fight.
Reece-McNeill got government permission to make some
simple architectural changes -- the addition of a disabled parking space, for
instance, and grab rails in the women's lobby restroom. The plaintiff, Irene
Meola, accepted the changes as satisfactory, according to court records, but
the suit moved forward anyway, as Meola sought damages under
In the end, a federal judge in the Central District of
California became skeptical of the plaintiff's story, saying he wasn't
convinced Meola had actually visited her son at the hotel. Her stories
"changed throughout the lawsuit," the judge ruled in June 2005,
refusing to award her damages.
Potter, who calls his law firm the Center for Disability
Access, did not return Bee phone calls.
Reece-McNeill felt vindicated, but that vindication had
cost her $100,000 in legal fees. A month later, the same judge denied her
motion to recover her costs saying, in part, that the defendant's
inconsistencies did not demonstrate "intentional deceit."
Today, the hotel's owner is plugging away at her
restoration, her pocketbook leaner.
In creating Access Without Lawsuits, she linked up with a
former disabled client of Potter's, Phil Di Prima, who had sued more than 50
Monrovia-area businesses before becoming disenchanted with the lawyer's
practices. Together, they hope to find other means of achieving disabled access
in
"What's going to make the change," says the hotel owner, "is finding some middle ground."