California Legislature Lets Small Business ADA Lawsuit Protection Die in Assembly

Senate Bill 84, which would have required plaintiffs to give small businesses 120 days’ notice and a chance to fix accessibility violations before suing under the Americans with Disabilities Act, died in the California Assembly earlier this month after sitting for more than a year without a vote.

The bill passed the Senate on June 4, 2025. It never reached an Assembly floor vote and missed a procedural deadline this month, killing it for the 2026 session.

The National Federation of Independent Business lobbied heavily for SB 84. The Americans for Tort Reform Association, in its 2026 Legislative HeatCheck report, described the bill’s death as California choosing “in favor of moving along a problematic bill that ATRA says purports to address the issue but could ultimately make the problem worse.” The report did not name the alternative bill.

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“It is incredibly disheartening that the Assembly killed SB 84, which would have properly addressed the abusive litigation that California small businesses face due to trial lawyers who take advantage of loopholes in the law to pad their own pockets,” said ATRA Vice President Lauren Sheets Jarrell.

The context: Fresno placed sixth nationally in GoDaddy’s ranking of entrepreneurial cities and was named California’s top city for small business by The Sacramento Bee last week, the same week the bill died. California as a whole ranked 35th among states in U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings, placing 50th in “Opportunity” and 44th in “Fiscal Responsibility.”

The Breakdown

• SB 84 would have required someone suing a small business over a technical ADA accessibility violation to provide detailed notice and wait 120 days for the business to fix the problem before collecting statutory damages, attorney’s fees, or court costs.
• The bill passed the Senate in June 2025 but sat in the Assembly for over a year before the August 2026 deadline.
• The bill is now dead for this legislative session.

What This Means for You

The Assembly’s inaction means small businesses in Fresno and across California remain exposed to the lawsuit pattern SB 84’s supporters described — technical accessibility violations triggering immediate statutory damages and attorney’s fees rather than a grace period to fix the issue. Voters weighing state legislative races need to know their Assembly representatives chose not to act on this bill for over a year, effectively killing it without a recorded vote that would show where each member stood. The Senate vote is on the record; the Assembly’s position is not.

What to Watch

The bill’s supporters framed it as protection against “predatory” and “abusive” litigation by trial lawyers. The bill’s opponents — who are not named or quoted in the material — evidently had the votes or procedural leverage to keep it from reaching the Assembly floor for over a year. That raises the question: was the 120-day notice period genuinely unworkable, or was it simply opposed by interests with more influence in the Assembly than small-business advocates had? A voter evaluating their Assembly representative’s priorities should ask why a bill with bipartisan Senate support never got a hearing or a vote, and whose interest that served.