Retailers and other companies have been increasingly caught up in an explosion of boilerplate claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), focusing on both websites and physical stores (see our previous coverage here, here, here, and here). While the plaintiffs’ bar has had a strong run with these claims in recent years, recent decisions […]
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Building the most inaccessible site possible with a perfect Lighthouse score
Disclaimer: This post is not about lighthouse, other testing tools perform similarly. It’s about us developers and our responsibility to not blindly rely on automatic testing. Google’s built-in testing tool Lighthouse judges the accessibility of our websites with a score between 0 and 100. It’s laudable to try to get a high grading, but a score […]
The Current Landscape Of Website Accessibility Cases Under The ADA In Florida
Florida has long been considered a hotbed of lawsuits filed under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Certainly, that practice has continued with the most recent trend of ADA cases, namely lawsuits alleging that websites are not accessible to the legally blind or visually impaired. For those defending website accessibility cases under the […]
9th Circuit Court of Appeals clarifies applicability of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act to websites and mobile applications
On January 15, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision with important ramifications for website and mobile application (“mobile app”) accessibility under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). In Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, the plaintiff asserted claims for violations of the ADA relating to alleged accessibility barriers encountered on the […]
Number Of Federal Website Accessibility Lawsuits Nearly Triple, Exceeding 2250 In 2018
[Graph: ADA Title III Website Accessibility Lawsuits in Federal Court: 2017-2018: 2017: 814; 2018: 2258, 177% increase over 2017. *The number of cases that could be identified through a diligent search.] As we had predicted, the number of website accessibility lawsuits (i.e. lawsuits alleging that plaintiffs with a disability could not use websites because they were […]
The Muddy Waters of ADA Website Compliance May Become Less Murky in 2019
The Scope of the Issue The Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) has been the source of a tremendous amount of litigation since President George H.W. Bush signed it into law in 1990. Over the past few years, Plaintiffs’ counsel have developed a cottage industry of sorts by filing thousands of lawsuits alleging that company […]
ADA Case Law and Statutory Updates
Lawsuits under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, based upon a company’s alleged failure to make its website accessible to the visually impaired or legally blind exploded in 2017 and 2018. In Gil v. Winn-Dixie, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90204, the only known website accessibility case to actually go to trial, Judge […]
There’s already a blueprint for a more accessible internet. If only designers would learn it
The internet can be a hostile space for 15% of the world’s population who experience some form of disability. Try navigating a website as someone who is visually impaired: Turn on voice command on your computer (Command ⌘ + F5 if you’re on a Mac, enable Navigator if you’re on a PC) and go to Amazon’s Kindle store. You’ll […]
The Business Case for Digital Accessibility
A business case is a necessary tool for organizations when planning for various initiatives. Whether an organization is commercial, educational, non-profit, or governmental, most require justification for dedicating resources such as money or effort in support of a specific organizational policy or goal. “Business” in this article refers to all types of organizations with the […]