Why Florida Businesses Are Getting Sued Over Their Websites

Many business owners don’t realize that their websites contain accessibility barriers until they receive a legal notice. Over the past year, dozens of Gainesville-area businesses, along with thousands of others across the country, have received ADA compliance notices. These notices are usually accompanied by settlement demands ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, leaving business owners with a lot of questions. 

Why is this happening, and how can you reduce your risk? Here’s what website accessibility means, why these claims are increasing, and what business owners can do about it.

What Is ADA Compliance?

The ADA was created to end systemic discrimination against people with disabilities. Website accessibility is intended to give people with disabilities equal access to online information, products, and services. When you are compliant, it means your environment (in this case, your website) meets the accessibility standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III also prohibits discrimination by businesses considered “places of public accommodation.” While this was passed in 1990, before the internet existed for public use, the Department of Justice has taken the position that your website counts as a place of public accommodation, because it serves the public.

Businesses open to the public must provide full and equal enjoyment of their goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations to people with disabilities. Failing to do this is what results in website accessibility lawsuits.

How This Applies to Your Website

Just like steps or a narrow doorway may prevent someone from entering a building, your website can have barriers keeping someone from enjoying it, or using it, to the fullest. Tax filing, registering for school, or purchasing concert tickets are all examples of services that could be offered on a website. If these features aren’t accessible, it limits the ability of a disabled person to access your offerings.

A landmark case that helped kick this off was Robles v. Domino’s Pizza. Guillermo Robles, who is vision-impaired, sued Domino’s because their website and app weren’t accessible to screen readers. A federal district court initially dismissed the case, but the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision and held that Title III did apply to Domino’s website and app. 

Title III itself doesn’t call out websites explicitly, but courts have read it to require that a public accommodation offer the same information and services to people with disabilities as it does to everyone else.

When Is a Website Compliant?

While the ADA is U.S. law, the accessibility guidelines it points businesses toward are used worldwide. A website is considered compliant when it conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. WCAG is developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international standards body.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the version courts and settlement agreements most commonly point to today, and WCAG 2.2 AA is the newer, more current benchmark (and the safer target if you're doing a full remediation of your website).

Common accessibility needs this covers:

• Screen readers for those who are blind or have low vision
• Captioning for users who are hard of hearing or deaf
• Voice recognition software for users with limited mobility
• Sufficient color contrast for users with low vision or color blindness
• Alt text and heading structure so screen readers can accurately describe images
• Keyboard navigation for those who can’t use a mouse or trackpad
• Accessible form fields with clear labeling that assistive tech can interpret

Why Am I Being Sued?

A small number of law firms specialize in these cases and send demand letters seeking quick settlements, usually starting around $5,000. They may even use automated scanning tools to flag accessibility issues on a website, which lets them identify dozens of potential targets without ever visiting the business in person.

There’s no federal regulation that spells out exactly what a private business’s website must do to comply. Private businesses fall under the broader Title III “public accommodation” standard, and it’s largely case law and settlement patterns, not a specific regulation, that have made WCAG the benchmark for everyone.

Local service businesses with public-facing sites, contact forms, and image-heavy pages are exactly the kind of target these firms scan for, since a few missing alt tags or an unlabeled form field is all it can take to generate a claim. If that describes your site, it’s worth having someone check it out before a demand letter forces the issue.

Is My Website ADA Compliant?

Right now, businesses and state and local governments have some flexibility in how they ensure the programs, services, and goods they provide online are accessible. A lot of companies try to shortcut this with an accessibility widget alone.

A widget can help with things like font size, contrast toggles, and keyboard shortcuts for the end user, but it can’t fix a missing alt tag or broken heading structure buried in the code. That’s why we pair a widget with developer-level remediation, rather than relying on the widget alone. The widget adds a nice layer of user control on top of that, but it’s not what makes the site defensible. The code is.

What To Do If You Receive a Demand Letter

If you’ve received a demand letter or a lawsuit regarding your website’s ADA compliance:

• Do not ignore it. Ignoring a lawsuit can result in a default judgment being entered against your business.
• Consult legal counsel. Speak with an attorney who specializes in ADA defense before communicating with the plaintiff’s lawyer or agreeing to any settlement demands.
• Take immediate action on your site. Start making your website WCAG compliant. Many businesses install accessibility widgets or hire developers to resolve immediate compliance issues.

How to Protect Your Business From ADA Lawsuits

Any worthwhile accessibility service comes with ongoing monitoring, especially if you need coverage across multiple states, or for something like an online shop or ordering app, where privacy and cookie laws vary state to state and change over time. Every finding needs a prioritized fix and it really can’t stop there: implement continuous, ongoing monitoring to be as safe as possible.

If you’d like to discuss how to protect your business from ADA website lawsuits, contact Clinton at clinton@dillonmediagroup.com. We can help you identify potential accessibility issues and determine the right next steps for your website.