Department of Justice Sues LA Fitness, Alleging Failure to Accommodate the Disabled

An LA Fitness location, in a file image. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

The Department of Justice on Oct. 8 filed suit against LA Fitness, alleging that the company’s facilities don’t properly accommodate disabled people.

U.S. prosecutors say Fitness International, which does business as LA Fitness, is not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The federal law bars discrimination against the disabled and requires businesses to “make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures, when such modifications are necessary to afford such goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to individuals with disabilities.”

LA Fitness is accused, as an example, of failing to offer working lifts at its pools and spas, according to customers cited by prosecutors.

LA Fitness, which has more than 700 locations across the nation, did not return a request for comment.

One patron, who since January 2020 has gone to several LA Fitness facilities to swim, has repeatedly dealt with pool lifts that aren’t working. The patron, who has multiple sclerosis, “has experienced being stuck and dangling over the water, requiring assistance from LA Fitness employees to exit the pool, and being unable to use the pool,” the complaint states.

Another person who swims at LA Fitness, uses a wheelchair, and can only independently get in and out of the pool with a lift experienced a broken lift for about a year, according to the complaint. His experience was said to have caused him emotional distress.

A third patron, who had polio as a child and became disabled as a result, often uses jacuzzies at LA Fitness but has found that the spa lift usually does not work, according to prosecutors. She is forced to call the front desk for assistance when the lift does not work, but sometimes she can’t get in touch with employees and becomes “extremely fearful that she will be stuck in the jacuzzi with no means to get out.”

Some LA Fitness facilities are also in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act architectural requirements, according to the Department of Justice. Some locker rooms, for example, are allegedly not accessible to people with disabilities.

The department is asking a federal district court in California to order Fitness International to comply with the act, including by making sure its facilities are accessible to disabled people and by offering operable lifts.

“Ensuring accessibility is key to safeguarding civil rights for all Americans,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, whose office brought the case, said in a statement. “Our office is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities have access to public accommodations by enforcing the protections afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act. When we support those with disabilities, our entire community benefits.”