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DanVy Vu was out on the floorof her restaurant one chilly evening in December 2019 when a staff member called her to the hostess station to assist an angry customer — a man in a wheelchair who, along with his wife, had been stuck outside. The couple said that they had tried the accessible entrance through a courtyard but found the gate locked, which had left the man shivering out in the cold while his wife circled back to a nonaccessible entrance at the front of the restaurant for help opening the gate.

Vu apologized profusely and looked up their reservation. It showed that they had requested an accessible table. But Vu’s staff was still getting used to a new reservation system and hadn’t seen the note; all the accessible spots were occupied. Vu apologized again and ushered the couple to the hallway to wait. Soon, she sat them at the accessible part of the bar. The couple ate and left. 

Vu’s restaurant, Top Hatters Kitchen and Bar, had been open in San Leandro, Calif., for eight months. As a child, Vu used to cook for her family, who resettled to Southern California as refugees from Vietnam, and for a series of boarders who lived with them. A self-taught chef, she ran a food truck for six years after moving to the Bay Area, but the work was taxing. (Vu once posted on Instagram: “Our tired truck broke down so often, one year, we were invited to our repair shop’s company holiday party.”) She dreamed of opening a real, brick-and-mortar restaurant. For three years she saved up and applied for loans until she could afford it.

By the time that happened, Vu was 40. She had lived in San Leandro — a town of nearly 90,000 people that is both more diverse and more affordable than nearby San Francisco and Oakland — for roughly a decade. Vu was determined to open a contemporary yet affordable restaurant that welcomed everyone. In the style of California cuisine, Top Hatters incorporated a variety of influences — her Vietnamese heritage, her husband and co-owner Matthew Beavers’s Italian background. Less than a mile from their home, she found an old milliner shop (hence the restaurant’s name) and started construction on a hip, open-floor-plan restaurant that wrapped around the courtyard with the accessible entrance. “All our savings and dreams and hopes went into it,” Vu told me. 

In the spring of 2019, Top Hatters opened to admiring local reviews, and Vu seemed to be on her way. It was when she was assisting the frustrated guest in a wheelchair that she suddenly recalled something she had been told when the restaurant was being designed: that they had to follow the rules “down to the smallest detail” when it came to the Americans With Disabilities Act. In recent years, litigation against businesses accused of violating the A.D.A. has risen sharply, as disabled people demand compliance with a law that has been in effect for 31 years. But some see the cases — many from people who make a practice of routinely filing suits — as a ploy for cash. Vu recalls being told that some people sued businesses “to make a living.” 

Three months later, as Top Hatters was getting ready to celebrate its first birthday, Alameda County issued a shelter-in-place order as a result of Covid-19. Vu had to lay off 20 of her 25 employees. To keep the restaurant from going under, she dipped into savings; she also successfully applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan and qualified for mortgage deferment. Then, in May, Vu and Beavers were served with papers: Someone was suing the restaurant for violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Vu’s instinct had been right. The customer filing the suit was the one from that December — Albert Dytch, a 71-year-old man with muscular dystrophy who has filed more than 180 A.D.A. lawsuits in California. With the support of a prolific lawyer named Tanya Moore, Dytch has sued restaurants, movie theaters, shops and educational institutions.

The complaint against Top Hatters noted the difficulty Dytch faced getting into the restaurant: “Had Plaintiff been alone, he would have been unable to alert anyone that he was trying to get in.” It also claimed that the counter where he was eventually seated wasn’t at a wheelchair-accessible level — “Plaintiff had to reach upwards to reach his drink and food” — and that there was limited clearance behind him. “Someone bumped into his wheelchair, which jostled him as he was eating,” it read. Dytch was suing Top Hatters for $75,000. 

To Vu, the lawsuit came as a shock — $75,000 seemed like a tremendous amount to compensate for Dytch’s experience. On the other hand, if Dytch didn’t have a disability, he wouldn’t have faced these barriers — barriers that were not just unpleasant but also, if verified, in violation of federal law. Was Dytch’s lawsuit merely a moneymaking venture? Or was it a necessary demand for justice?