Alex Sajkovic has lived in his Haight Ashbury apartment for the last 37 years. In 1993, he started a natural stone business in San Francisco, which he ran successfully until being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“ALS”), a rare fatal progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control. By the Summer of 2020, he could no longer navigate the 44 stairs to his apartment by himself. Alex and his wife Rose secured an affordable chair lift and reached out to their landlord to get permission to install it. Instead of working with Alex to install the chairlift, the landlord obstructed installation for months responding with curt, vague emails denying permission to install it.

Alex reached out to LAE. We made a formal request for the landlord to approve the chairlift, which was denied. We followed up by filing suit and seeking a court order requiring the landlord allow the installation. We won in court and now Alex can leave his apartment to attend his medical appointments and, on good days, relax in the Panhandle, steps away from his front door.