Protect Your Website: Accessibility Lawsuit Insights

Join Natalie MacLees and Natalie Garza for the 29th episode of the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. They delve into the significant rise in ADA lawsuits related to digital properties, examining how these lawsuits affect small business websites and government entities. The discussion covers key statistics, including the increase in state-level lawsuits, repeat lawsuits, and the impact of accessibility widgets. They also emphasize the importance of education and proactive efforts in making websites accessible.

Natalie Garza: Hello everybody and welcome to the AAArdvark Accessibility Podcast. My name’s Natalie Garza. I’m one of the co-hosts, and with me today is,

Natalie MacLees: Natalie MacLees, the other co-host.

Natalie Garza: and she is a digital accessibility expert here to answer our questions. Talk to us about today’s topic, which is how accessibility lawsuits have affected small business websites and also government websites.

So we’re gonna go through some statistics and then dive in. So to get started, first one, we found that “Over 4,000 ADA lawsuits related to digital properties were filed in 2024. With a decline in federal cases and an increase in state level lawsuits, particularly in New York and California.” (UsableNet 2024 Report)

Natalie MacLees: I think generally the decline in the federal cases is probably due to the change of the administration at the federal level and the administration demonstrating a different set of priorities around accessibility right now. So we see those cases kind of shifting to the state level.

California has a Civil Rights Act, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, that was passed in 1959. Which does let plaintiffs claim $4,000 per violation, per person, per visit, so that does create an incentive structure for frivolous lawsuits, unfortunately. Not all accessibility lawsuits are frivolous. But there is a problem I think, in the industry with abuse of using the judicial systemfor personal gain.

And there are definitely legitimate cases, and I don’t wanna take that away from anybody, but there are also cases where it seems like nobody actually did go try to use the website, and then they file these lawsuits.

So unfortunately, there’s that incentive for that to happen, and it’s meant to be an incentive for small businesses and government websites and things like that, it’s meant to be an incentive for them to avoid those fines and fees and make their, you know, the, it’s not just their websites, right? That law applies to physical locations, like having a wheelchair ramp for your restaurant and accessible restrooms, like it applies to all different all different situations, but it does include websites.

So it’s meant to be an incentive for businesses and governments to make things accessible. And I think it has accomplished that to a certain degree, but I think it also has this kind of other unfortunate side effect, that we see.

And then in New York, there’s not a specific law in New York that’s causing the extra lawsuits there.

I think it’s just a friendly court district that happens to be in New York, and I know that there are a lot of family-owned wineries in upstate New York that have been for some reason targeted by these lawsuits. Which is also unfortunate that what’s getting targeted are they small family run businesses.

I agree that they should all have accessible websites and accessible premises I think they should be doing everything that they can to make their websites and their shops accessible. But...