Romero v. 88 Acres Foods Inc.

OPINION & ORDER Josue Romero (“Plaintiff”), a visually impaired person, brings this action on behalf of himself and others similarly situated against 88 Acres Foods, Inc. (“Defendant”) for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §§12101 et seq., (“ADA”) and related state law claims. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant failed to design, construct, maintain, and operate its website to be fully accessible to and independently usable by Plaintiff and other visually impaired people, thereby violating Plaintiff’s rights under the ADA. Defendant moves to dismiss the Complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2) and (6). For the reasons set forth below, Defendant’s motion is DENIED in its entirety. BACKGROUND Plaintiff Josue Romero, a domiciliary of New York State, is visually impaired and thus requires screen-reading software to read website content using his computer. (Compl. 2, ECF No. 1.) The Complaint uses the term “visually impaired” to refer to all people who have a visual acuity with correction of less than or equal to 20 x 200. (Id.) Defendant 88 Acres Foods, Inc., a domiciliary of Delaware with its principal place of business in Massachusetts, is a seed-based food company that owns and operates www.88acres.com (the “Website”), which offers goods and services for online sale and delivery to the public. (Id. 20.) Plaintiff alleges that Defendant sells and distributes its products throughout the United States, including in New York. (Id. 21.) The Complaint alleges that on several occasions, the last of which occurred in October 2020, Plaintiff visited Defendant’s Website to make a purchase but was denied access equal to that of sighted individuals due to several accessibility barriers. (Id.

25-26.) One barrier is the lack of alternative text (“alt-text”), which is an invisible code embedded beneath a graphical image on a website. Without alt-text, screen-reading software cannot vocalize a description of the graphic where a sighted user can see the graphic. (Id.) Several other barriers involve broken links. The Website has links that are improperly labeled, including the link for the subscription price. (Id. 31(c)). Without a label, screen-reading software is unable to properly interpret the link. (Id.