07/01/2019
What should businesses know about their websites and The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and/or California AB 434?
In 2012, President Obama signed a bill to extend the A.D.A to include technology. Ie,, websites, apps..
In 2017, former Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 434 that extended the Unruh Civil Rights Act to include website accessibility and making it discrimination if a business website does not work for those with disabilities.
Link to AB 434 Law
Now what does all of this mean to me as a business owner?
In 2018 there were 2258 Federal lawsuits in which businesses were sued because their websites did not work properly for those with the following disabilities:
Blind
Deaf
Blind & Deaf
Difficulty seeing
Colored blind
Motor skills (cannot operate a mouse with their hand)
Cognitive (cannot comprehend complex websites)
In CA, there were over 4000 state lawsuits and the Judge over our Federal district ruled in December 2017 that businesses did not have to comply with the federal law. That ruling was overturned in January of 2019 in appellate court. We will see the number of lawsuits in federal court increase substantially this year.
It appears that most of the website lawsuit in 2018 & 2019 are for not working properly for blind readers. This is software that reads a website out loud for those that cannot see.
The problem is that this has turned into “Serial Litigation”. Which means, several small and large businesses are being sued each week, month and year in each county in CA. It appears that the same individuals are suing multiple businesses for monitory gains and as there are no grandfather clauses or grace periods with regards to your business website. Beyoncé was sued over her website.
If you own a business, I would love to speak with you. It is becoming a matter of when more than if you will be sued.
California leads other states by far in ADA lawsuits, according to the Seyfarth Shaw analysis. That may be because a California law sets a minimum dollar amount for damages of $4,000 plus attorney’s fees for each ADA violation, a minimum not imposed in most other states. The minimum, according to lawyers who defend such lawsuits, makes suing in California more lucrative.
Nearly 5,000 ADA lawsuits were filed in federal court for alleged website violations in the first six months of 2018, according to an analysis by Seyfarth Shaw, a law firm that specializes in defending such cases. The firm predicted that the number of lawsuits will climb to nearly 10,000 by the end of the year, a 30% increase from 2017.
Glen Ingram
https://www.websearchpros.com
Web Search Pros
(714) 294-2125
