What ADA Parking Violations Actually Cost Oregon Businesses

The Cost of Doing Nothing

It is tempting to treat an out-of-compliance parking lot as a problem for later. The accessible spaces are a little faded, the signs are a little low, but no one has complained, so why spend the money? The answer is that the cost of non-compliance is not just the eventual repair. It is the penalties, settlements, and legal fees that stack on top of the repair when a complaint or lawsuit lands. Doing nothing is the expensive option.

This page breaks down what ADA parking violations actually cost an Oregon business, from federal penalties to private suits to state enforcement, and compares those numbers with the cost of simply fixing the lot. For the underlying requirements, see our ADA parking compliance guide for Oregon.

Federal Civil Penalties

The U.S. Department of Justice can pursue civil penalties for ADA violations in cases it brings. The statutory framework allows penalties up to a set maximum for a first violation and a higher maximum for subsequent violations. The commonly cited figures are up to $75,000 for a first violation and up to $150,000 for each subsequent violation, with those caps adjusted for inflation over time.

These penalties apply in enforcement actions brought by the federal government, which are less common than private suits but carry the largest individual numbers. They are the ceiling on federal exposure, and they exist to make non-compliance a genuine financial risk rather than a cost of doing business.

Private Lawsuits and the Attorney-Fee Driver

Most ADA parking exposure does not come from the DOJ. It comes from private lawsuits, and the engine that drives them is attorney fees.

Under the ADA's access provisions, a private plaintiff generally cannot recover monetary damages directly under federal law, but a prevailing plaintiff can recover attorney fees and costs. That fee-shifting is what makes drive-by cases economically viable to file, which we cover in our ADA drive-by lawsuits in Oregon page. A defendant who settles typically pays the plaintiff's attorney fees plus a negotiated amount, and those fees can dwarf the cost of the underlying fix.

Settlement amounts vary widely, but private ADA access settlements frequently land in the several-thousand to low-tens-of-thousands range once attorney fees are folded in. And the settlement does not include the cost of fixing the lot, which you still have to do.

Oregon State Enforcement and BOLI

Oregon layers its own enforcement on top of the federal framework. Oregon's public-accommodation and accessibility laws give complainants a state avenue, administered through the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI). A complainant can pursue a state claim without first going through federal court, and state law can provide for its own remedies, including monetary awards in some cases that federal ADA access claims do not allow.

The practical effect is that an Oregon business can face exposure from multiple directions for the same underlying violation: a federal suit, a state BOLI complaint, or both. That multiplies the potential cost of leaving a lot non-compliant. This is general information rather than legal advice, and an attorney can assess your specific exposure.

What Fixing the Lot Costs by Comparison

Set the penalty and settlement numbers next to the cost of correcting the violations, and the comparison is stark. Most parking-lot ADA violations are striping and signage problems, and the fixes are ordinary parking-lot work:

• Restriping accessible spaces and aisles. Industry baseline ranges for accessible space and aisle markings are modest relative to a settlement, though actual costs vary by lot.
• Signage. Installing or correcting a compliant sign is a few hundred dollars per sign, baseline.
• Repainting faded symbols. A line-item add to a restripe.
• Slope and surface correction. The larger-cost items, but still typically well below a lawsuit's total cost when needed.

A full assessment through an ADA compliance audit process tells you exactly which fixes your lot needs, and most lots need a subset, not all of them. The point is that the corrective work is predictable, one-time, and far cheaper than the open-ended exposure of a violation. These are industry baseline ranges, not firm quotes, and your actual cost depends on your lot's condition and scope.

The Hidden Costs Beyond the Numbers

The penalties and settlements are the visible costs. There are others that do not show up as a line item:

• Disruption. Responding to a lawsuit takes time, attention, and stress that pull an owner away from running the business.
• Reputation. A public accessibility complaint can damage how customers and the community view a business.
• Repeat exposure. Settling one claim without fixing the lot leaves it open to the next plaintiff, turning a one-time cost into a recurring one.
• Lost customers. A genuinely inaccessible lot turns away customers and employees with disabilities, which is the underlying purpose the law protects.

The Clear Math

Strip away the legal detail and the math is simple. Non-compliance risks federal penalties up to the statutory caps, private settlements with attorney fees, and Oregon state enforcement, on top of the cost of fixing the lot anyway. Compliance costs a striping-and-signage project, paid once. The lots most exposed are the ones whose owners assumed no one would notice. The cheapest path is to fix the visible violations before anyone documents them, which our 10 most common ADA parking violations page helps you identify.