The courtroom in Brooklyn overflowed with lawyers waiting on the calendar call. Caner Demirayak, sweating slightly, sat in his 24-inch-wide Invacare Nutron wheelchair and maneuvered himself up through the crowd. The young lawyer had motion papers stuffed under his arm.

He was there to argue liability in a car accident case. But first he had to hand up the reply motion papers to a judge’s clerk. It soon became clear that his motorized wheelchair, one of the most compact available on the market, would not squeeze between the courtroom rail and a bench.