The U.S. Department of Justice on Oct. 8 sued LA Fitness, alleging the company’s facilities don’t properly accommodate disabled people.
LA Fitness, for instance, has failed 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 has gone since January 2020 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 is thus disabled, often uses jacuzzis at LA Fitness but has found the spa lift usually does not work, prosecutors said. 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, the Department of Justice said. Some locker rooms, for example, are allegedly not accessible to people with disabilities.
The department is asking the federal court in central California to order Fitness International to comply with the act, including by making sure their facilities are accessible to disabled people and by offering operable lifts.