Our research department has crunched the numbers from the federal court docket and the verdict is that the ADA Title III plaintiff’s bar and their clients are still busy filing lawsuits. Here are the findings:
Continue Reading ADA Title III Lawsuits Continue to Rise: 8% Increase in 2015
Last week, Buzzfeed reported that the United Spinal Association opposed Uber’s CEO’s nomination for Time Magazine’s Man of the Year award because Uber cars are allegedly not wheelchair accessible. This controversy raises an important and novel question: Are online-only businesses like Uber and Airbnb covered by Title III of the ADA, and what would coverage mean when the businesses don’t
Continue Reading Mobile Apps Like Uber and Airbnb Raise Novel ADA Title III Issues
We’ve done the review and crunched the numbers: It appears that the surge of ADA Title III lawsuits we saw from 2013 to 2014 is holding strong, though possibly leveling off.
You may recall that there was a 60% increase in the number of ADA Title III lawsuits between 2013 and 2014 (2479 vs. 4436). In the first six months
Continue Reading ADA Title III Lawsuit Numbers Hold Steady for First Half of 2015
Mar
ianne Wilson of Chain Store Age Media reported today that the “ADA Education and Reform Act of 2015”, H.R. 3765, introduced yesterday, October 20, 2015, by Representatives Ted Poe (R-TX), Doug Collins (R-GA) and David Jolly (R-FL), seeks to address ADA “drive-by” lawsuits. This is a topic about which we’ve reported about numerous times, such as here.
Continue Reading ADA Reform Legislation Proponents Cite Seyfarth’s Lawsuit Data
In late July, coinciding with the 25th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) entered into a landmark settlement agreement with Carnival Corp. to improve the physical accessibility of 62 cruise ships sailing under the Carnival Cruise Line, Holland America Line, and Princess Cruise brands. The agreement, also addresses the accessibility of Carnival’s
Continue Reading Justice Department Applies ADA Title III To Carnival’s Cruise Ships, Website, and Mobile App in a Landmark Settlement
By Minh N. Vu and Susan Ryan
In August 2014, we reported that the number of ADA Title III lawsuits filed against public accommodations rose by nearly 9% in 2013 over 2012. At that time, we predicted that there could be a 40% increase in the number of lawsuits filed in 2014 based on 6 months of data. Now that
Continue Reading ADA Title III Lawsuits Surge by More than 63%, to Over 4400, In 2014
By Minh N. Vu
They are sprouting up everywhere: Kiosks that allow customers to buy tickets, rent DVDs, get boarding passes, check-in at a hotel, count change, and even rent cars without ever having to interact with a human being. These self-service kiosks can be a boon for customers and businesses, but they also create lawsuit exposure for businesses that fail to consider how they will be used by individuals who are blind or have limited mobility.
Redbox’s recent settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by advocates for the blind highlights this thorny issue and the uncertain legal landscape surrounding self-service equipment designed for customer use. Several blind individuals and an advocacy group sued Redbox because its DVD rental kiosks could not be independently used by non-sighted individuals. After two years of litigation and mediation, the parties entered into a class settlement under which Redbox agreed to take the following steps for all Redbox locations in California:
Redbox also agreed to make certain accessibility improvements to its website but notably did not commit to meeting the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Continue Reading Accessible Technology: Redbox DVD Rental Kiosk Class Action Settlement Highlights Litigation Risk Presented by Self-Service Equipment
Once again, CSUN’s International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference brought together thought leaders, programmers, corporate and governmental accessibility representatives, vendors of digital accessibility solutions, advocates, and others in the field of digital accessibility to share developments and ideas. The large, varied crowd, as well as the substantive sessions, remove any possible doubt that the area of web and mobile accessibility is rightfully garnering a lot of attention.
Although the Department of Justice is still working on proposed regulations that would presumably adopt a legal standard defining what is an accessible website or mobile app, its recent enforcement actions make clear that the absence of regulations poses no impediment to legal action against businesses for not having accessible websites or mobile apps. Private plaintiffs have been also been very active in filing lawsuits or asserting such claims against many companies. In this climate, many companies that have either been the targets of these actions, or just paying close attention to these developments, have decided that it is better to commit to accessibility now than to engage in a protracted and expensive legal battle. Moreover, as many companies at the conference have recognized, building accessibility into any refreshes, redesigns, or new rollouts of websites or mobile apps makes sense over increased expense of remediating those same sites later, especially if remediation is done in response to legal action.
The conference’s legal update session drove these points home. Accessibility civil rights attorneys Lainey Feingold and Linda Dardarian emphasized their position that Title III of ADA does cover websites, and gave a year-in-review report of digital accessibility legal developments in the following industries:
Continue Reading Accessible Websites and Mobile Apps: Hot Topics at CSUN’s International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference
A law firm that filed more than 100 class actions from early 2012 through 2013 is scratching that ADA itch again with new Title III class suits. Since January of this year, the firm filed seven new lawsuits on behalf of one plaintiff. Each lawsuit alleges that the defendants’ bank branches, located throughout Pennsylvania, are inaccessible
Continue Reading Bank Branches Sued Again in a Second Round of Title III Class Suits
They’re here and they’re not going away. Six weeks ago we blogged about AXS Map. Now comes AbleRoad, a much more comprehensive customer review website/mobile app that allows individuals to post online reviews of a business’s accessibility to individuals with disabilities.
AbleRoad, which worked with Yelp.com to allow both Yelp and AbleRoad ratings to be
Continue Reading YELP! – Another Website/Mobile App Launches Allowing Individuals To Rate A Business’s Accessibility To Customers With Disabilities
