More and more businesses are being sued by visually impaired individuals who claim that they cannot access or use their websites, in violation of Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act (the ADA), 42 U.S.C. §12181 et seq., which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the activities of “places of public accommodations,” as well as in violation of certain state and local laws. Plaintiffs and their counsel view these lawsuits as having a laudable goal: ensuring that the blind have the same opportunities to engage in our online world as the sighted. Defendants have a more cynical view and see the lawsuits—often filed in multiples of 10 or more at a time targeting multiple businesses in the same industry, by the same named plaintiff and same counsel—as a strategy to secure fast settlement for substantial fees because many defendants choose to settle early rather than incur class action litigation costs.

Recently, Senior U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York issued a decision approving a settlement of one leading case, which had been heavily litigated prior to settlement. The court’s lengthy and well-reasoned opinion, in Andrews v. Blick Art Materials, No. 17-CV-767 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 21, 2017), offers an excellent tutorial on the science and public policy behind website accessibility suits. It also may highlight the steps that e-businesses could consider initiating to preempt litigation by improving the accessibility of their websites. Another benefit of doing that, of course, is that they will make their products and services more available and attractive to a population—the visually impaired—that may not have been fully engaged on their websites in the past.

Background