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ADA Lawsuit Watch: 7 New Website Accessibility Suits Hit Online Stores

By Ryvo Team

AccessibilityADA LawsuitsE-commerceRetailSmall Business

What happened

Over the last 14 days, seven new ADA website accessibility lawsuits showed up in federal court. Most of them were filed in New York (the Southern District of New York) and a couple in Florida (the Southern District of Florida). The pattern is hard to miss: online stores are getting hit the most. Six of the seven suits name e-commerce brands, and one names a larger retail company, Gazonni v. Office Depot LLC. Cases like Powell v. Curology, Inc. and Russo v. Spanx, LLC round out the group, along with filings against Cymbiotika, PlanetArt, Adornmonde, and Jason Hyde.

What the lawsuits claim

Every one of these is an allegation. Nobody has been found to have broken any law, and no court has decided these cases.

Each filing claims that the company's website has accessibility barriers under the ADA. In plain English, that means the plaintiff says a person who uses assistive technology (like software that reads a page out loud) had trouble using the site. The court records here do not spell out every technical detail, but in this type of case the common complaints usually sound like this:

  • Screen reader trouble. The lawsuit may claim that software which reads a page aloud could not make sense of parts of the site.
  • Unlabeled buttons or forms. The claim may be that a checkout button or a form field had no clear label, so a blind visitor could not tell what it does.
  • Images with no description. The claim may be that pictures had no text behind them, so the reading software had nothing to say.
  • Keyboard problems. The claim may be that someone who cannot use a mouse could not move through the site with a keyboard alone.

Again, these are the kinds of things such suits typically allege. The filings here simply say the sites have accessibility barriers.

Who should pay attention

Based only on this batch of filings, the most exposed businesses are online stores that sell directly to shoppers. Skincare, supplements, apparel, jewelry, and photo or print products all show up here, as in Russo v. Adornmonde, Inc.. If you sell products through your website, especially with a shopping cart and checkout, you fit the profile that these recent suits are targeting.

Location matters too. These filings clustered in New York and Florida courts, so businesses that sell into those states may want to look closely.

What to do about it

You do not need to panic, and no single step can promise to keep you out of court. But you can lower your risk and make your site easier for everyone to use.

  • Check the basics first. Make sure your images have text descriptions, your buttons and form fields have clear labels, and someone can move through your site using only a keyboard.
  • Ask real people to test it. Have someone try your checkout using screen reader software, since that is where many of these claims focus.
  • Get a quick read on where you stand. You can run a free scan of your website to spot common issues fast, then fix what it finds.

This post summarizes allegations from public court filings. It is not legal advice, and no outcome described here has been decided by a court unless stated.