ADA Website Lawsuits: What You Need to Know
ADA Website Lawsuits: What You Need to Know
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Protecting your website against ADA lawsuits may seem daunting. However, knowing what compliance standards you need to meet and where to start can help. Below, we’ll discuss best practices for protecting your website and business from compliance lawsuits and how AudioEye helps mitigate your legal risk.
Originally Posted on September 29, 2021
Few experiences are more stressful than a lawsuit — and cases connected to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) present a unique set of challenges. With these lawsuits increasing steadily over the last few years and trending toward 4,200 by the end of this year, organizations must take proactive steps to minimize legal risk.
Whether you’re just at the beginning of understanding ADA requirements and determining your overall exposure to risk, responding to a recently received demand letter, or actively defending yourself against an ADA website lawsuit in court, you’ll need to ensure you understand what you’re up against.
Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know about ADA website lawsuits — what requirements you must meet to be ADA-compliant, how to avoid a web accessibility lawsuit, and examples of past ADA accessibility cases.
Understanding ADA Website Lawsuits
When we’re talking about ADA website compliance lawsuits, it’s important to understand that the ADA isn’t just any kind of law.
Enacted in 1990, the ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in places of public accommodation. With the world becoming more digital, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has repeatedly stated that online spaces are considered public places and must be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
Essentially, the accessibility law ensures fairness and equality for all Americans by prohibiting discrimination based on disability across five distinct sections, or ‘titles,’ of modern American life, including:
- Title I: Employment: Employers cannot discriminate against individuals with disabilities in hiring, firing, promoting, or other employment processes.
- Title II: Government: State and local governments must ensure their programs, services, activities, and digital information are accessible to individuals with disabilities. Recent updates to Title II also established the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1 Level AA as the standard for compliance.
- Title III: Public Accommodations and Services Operated by Private Entities: Title III mandates that private businesses and nonprofits (such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, and retail stores) open to the public must provide accessible facilities and services — both in digital and physical locations.
- Title IV: Telecommunications: Title IV requires telecommunication companies to provide functionally equivalent services for individuals with hearing and speech disabilities. This includes making telecommunications relay services (TRS) available and requiring television stations to provide closed captioning of public service announcements.
- Title V: Miscellaneous Provisions: Title V includes a variety of provisions related to the ADA as a whole. It clarifies relationships with other laws, explains state immunity, and describes the ADA’s impact on insurance providers and benefits. It also includes an anti-retaliation provision, protecting individuals who assert their rights under the ADA from retaliation.
Because violating a person’s civil rights inflicts inherent harm to the integrity of American democracy, the ADA is considered a “strict liability” law.
As a legal concept, strict liability means that damage is possible without fault. There are no defenses against violations of strict liability law. More simply, you can’t say you didn’t know which requirements to follow or never intended to cause harm.
What is the Risk of Non-Compliance with the ADA?
Non-compliance with the ADA exposes your organization to numerous legal, financial, and reputational risks. Failing to comply with the ADA can result in legal action, including costly lawsuits, federal fines, settlements, and potential loss of government funding or contracts. For example, the maximum fine for ADA non-compliance is $75,000 for the first violation and $150,000 for every subsequent violation.
Beyond the financial impact, non-compliance can harm your reputation, resulting in negative publicity and lost business as consumers increasingly prioritize inclusivity and accessibility. Additionally, non-compliance can exclude a significant portion of the population, limiting your customer base and revenue pool.
Put simply, making ADA compliance a priority helps you avoid these risks, provides a more accessible user experience, and demonstrates your commitment to inclusivity.
How to Protect Your Site Against ADA Website Compliance Lawsuits
When it comes to ADA compliance, there can be no half-measures. Either your site complies with the law, or it doesn’t.
To ensure your site does not discriminate against people with disabilities, you must meet the accessibility standards outlined in WCAG 2.1 Level AA. This version of WCAG includes 78 success criteria, all designed to enhance accessibility, especially for mobile devices, touch screens, and people with low vision and cognitive impairments.
Here are a few examples of the success criteria to give you an idea of what standards you need to meet:
- Ensure that all non-text content, such as images, form fields, video, audio, etc., includes alt text that explains the element's purpose.
- Avoid using color as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element on the site.
- Make sure everything on the site can be done with keyboard commands or shortcuts alone and is compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers.
- Use descriptive webpage titles that clearly describe each page’s topic or purpose. Descriptive text should also be used on buttons and CTAs.
- Ensure the site’s navigational elements are consistent and predictable across every page.
- All digital content should have a sufficient color contrast ratio (4.5:1 for normal text and 7:1 for large text) between background and foreground elements.
- Check that content is visible on all screen sizes, including desktop and mobile devices, without requiring scrolling in two different directions.
- Avoid using complex gestures (like swiping) alone; ensure these gestures have simpler alternatives for individuals with motor disabilities.
- Add captions or transcripts to audio content so users with auditory disabilities (such as deafness) or those with situational disabilities (such as being in a noisy environment) can still interact with the content.
These are just some of the WCAG success criteria you must conform to to comply with the ADA. For a more comprehensive list, check out our comprehensive WCAG checklist.
Additionally, if you’re unsure whether your site complies with the ADA and you don’t have the resources or expertise to verify conformity with WCAG, consider testing your website for accessibility using an accessibility checker like AudioEye’s. AudioEye’s free Web Accessibility Scanner, for example, scans your digital content for 30 WCAG violations (more than any other tool on the market), giving you an in-depth understanding of how accessible your existing content is and where you may be at legal risk.
4 ADA Website Lawsuit Examples
ADA website compliance lawsuits can be a significant drain of time and resources, with some ADA lawsuits against websites dragging on for years. To give you an idea of what can happen when lawyers get involved, let’s take a look at four high-profile ADA website accessibility lawsuits.
1. Netflix
In this 2012 Title III claim, the National Association of the Deaf sued Netflix for not providing closed captioning for Watch Instantly content streamed on its website, thereby discriminating against people who are deaf and those who are hard of hearing.
In the consent decree for this lawsuit, Netflix was ordered to provide closed captioning on 100% of its online content within a two-year period and deliver training to customer service representatives on responding to questions about captioning concerns. Netflix was also ordered to pay $755,000 for attorney fees and costs related to the lawsuit and $40,000 to the National Association of the Deaf for monitoring.
Now, the streaming platform includes closed captions and subtitles for all video content and allows users to change the font, size, shadow, and background color of subtitles and closed captions. This allows users to change captions based on their specific accessibility needs.
2. H&R Block
In this 2013 Title III claim, the U.S. joined the National Federation of the Blind, Mika Pyyhkala, and Lindsay Yazzolino in a suit against tax services firm H&R Block, whose website was not accessible to people with disabilities.
The settlement agreement for this suit compelled H&R Block to make its website and mobile app conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. The other terms of the agreement were provisions for designating a full-time website accessibility coordinator, providing annual accessibility training to all employees working with its website, and retaining an independent consultant. H&R Block also had to pay $22,500 to Pyyhkala and $22,500 to Yazzolino and submit to a $55,000 civil penalty.
3. Peapod
In this 2014 Title III claim, the U.S. sued Peapod, an online grocery delivery service, for discrimination. Key parts of the complaint involved missing or inaccurate alt tags for images, buttons and form fields, modal windows that screen readers could not detect, improperly formatted tables, and confusing use of boldface type.
The settlement agreement for this lawsuit required Peapod to conform to WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards, hire a full-time website accessibility coordinator, acquire an automated website accessibility testing tool, retain an independent site accessibility consultant, and, among other provisions, provide annual accessibility training to all employees working with Peapod.
4. Domino’s Pizza
This is one of the most well-known accessibility lawsuits, when, in 2016, the restaurant was sued for failing to follow the ADA. The plaintiff alleged that its website and mobile app were not accessible to screen readers. Domino’s lost the initial case but, during the appeals process, argued that websites were not covered by the ADA. In October 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, upholding the lower court’s decision against Domino’s in a win for digital accessibility. In June 2021, California federal court found that Domino's had violated Title III of the ADA and showed they still did not have an accessible website or mobile app for ordering.
In the settlement agreement for this lawsuit, Domino’s is compelled to bring its website into compliance with WCAG 2.0 guidelines, pay the plaintiff $4,000 for the violation, and cover the plaintiff’s attorney fees.
Since settling the lawsuit, the pizza restaurant has published an accessibility policy on its site and added accessibility features such as the ability to pause animations and improved keyboard navigation.
Unfortunately, the number of ADA website compliance lawsuits has grown every year and will continue to rise in 2025. Last year, more than 4,000 ADA Title III lawsuits were filed against websites. Of course, those lawsuits do not account for the thousands of demand letters, which may result in out-of-court settlements and are harder to track.
Reduce Compliance Complexity with AudioEye
The risks of non-compliance — legal, financial, and reputational — can be immense, highlighting the need to take a proactive approach to increasing accessibility. Doing so not only minimizes your exposure to costly lawsuits and protects your reputation but also demonstrates your commitment to equal access for all users, including those with disabilities.
With AudioEye, your path to ADA compliance is easy. Our process starts with a free accessibility scan of your digital content, highlighting where common WCAG violations are and applying Automatic Fixes for those issues. We supplement that testing with Expert Audits from our team of human experts who find more complex accessibility issues and provide guidance on how to fix them. The result: A more accessible website that reduces your legal risk.
Our tech-forward approach of combining AI and expert testing with members from the disability community allows us to offer a level of protection that is 400% higher than consulting or automation-only approaches. By combining our robust technology with our human expertise, we’re able to offer a genuine guarantee of accessibility compliance.
Ready to get started? Enter the URL of your digital content in our free Accessibility Scanner to see how accessible your existing content is.
Facing a lawsuit? AudioEye is your trusted legal partner, supporting you throughout the entire process. Contact us to learn more.
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