Ninth Circuit

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By Minh N. Vu

Seyfarth synopsis:  The Ninth Circuit holds that a restaurant’s practice of exclusively providing service at the drive-through and refusing to serve pedestrians at the drive-through line does not violate the ADA.

Many fast food restaurants nowadays take food orders and deliver food exclusively at the drive-through window during certain business hours.  Due to safety concerns, at…
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Says Restaurant Does Not Discriminate Against the Blind By Providing Only Drive-Through Service

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By Minh N. Vu

Seyfarth Synopsis: California federal trial court grants summary judgment for plaintiff, finding Domino’s violated the ADA by having a website that is inaccessible to the blind and orders Domino’s bring its website into compliance with the WCAG 2.0 guidelines.

Five years after the lawsuit was first filed, federal district court judge Jesus Bernal ruled on June…
Continue Reading Court finds Domino’s Pizza Violated the ADA by Having an Inaccessible Website and Orders WCAG Compliance

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By Myra Villamor, Minh Vu, and Kristina Launey

Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals adopts a burden-shifting framework for analyzing claims involving the removal of pre-ADA barriers which requires the plaintiff to “plausibly show how the cost of removing the architectural barrier at issue does not exceed the benefits under the circumstances.”

Under the Americans with…
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Announces Legal Framework for Readily Achievable Barrier Removal Claims Under ADA

Seyfarth Synopsis:  The Ninth Circuit holds that the ADA does not require a 36 inch length of clear sales counter space when the entire counter provided for all customers is at an accessible height.

When a business provides only one sales counter for all customers to use and that entire counter is at an accessible height of 36 inches or…
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Rejects Serial Plaintiffs’ Lawsuits About the ADA’s Accessible Sales Counter Requirements

By Minh N. Vu and Kristina M. Launey

Domino’s filed its petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court today, June 13, 2019, asking the Court to review and overturn the Ninth Circuit’s decision which allowed a website accessibility lawsuit to proceed against Domino’s.  Domino’s styled the question presented as “Whether Title III of the ADA requires a…
Continue Reading Domino’s Files Petition for US Supreme Court Review of Unfavorable Website Access Decision

Seyfarth Synopsis:  Domino’s Likely to File Petition for Certiorari from Ninth Circuit’s Ruling in Robles v. Domino’s.

As we reported, the Ninth Circuit held in January that a blind plaintiff could move forward with his ADA Title III lawsuit against Domino’s Pizza for having an allegedly inaccessible website and mobile app.  The court determined that allowing the claim to…
Continue Reading Domino’s To Ask Supreme Court To Consider Whether ADA Website/Mobile App Accessibility Lawsuits Violate Due Process

Seyfarth Synopsis: Ninth Circuit overturns district court’s dismissal of website accessibility lawsuit on due process and primary jurisdiction grounds, remands case to proceed with discovery.

On January 15, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued the fifth federal appeals court ruling on the issue of website accessibility, and there is no doubt that it is a victory for plaintiffs…
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Allows the Robles v. Domino’s Website and Mobile App Accessibility Lawsuit to Move Forward

Seyfarth Synopsis: Due process, DOJ’s failure to enact regulations, and whether the ADA covers websites arguments dominated the recent Domino’s Ninth Circuit oral argument.

In the increasing morass of varying state and federal district court opinions in website accessibility cases, we will soon have two additional federal appellate decisions to provide more guidance of precedential value to federal trial courts. …
Continue Reading Domino’s: Ninth Circuit Hears Web Accessibility Appeal Argument

This morning, October 12, in sunny Pasadena, California, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in the Robles v. Dominos case. The main issue on appeal was whether the district court erred in applying the doctrines of primary jurisdiction and due process as the basis for granting Domino’s motion to dismiss Robles’s claims that Dominos violated Title III…
Continue Reading Robles v. Dominos: Engaged Ninth Circuit Hears Web Access Appeal

Seyfarth Synopsis:  Plaintiffs secure a second judgment in a federal website accessibility lawsuit while most of the others successfully fended off motions to dismiss. 

2018 has been a bad year for most businesses that have chosen to fight website accessibility cases filed under Title III of the ADA.  Plaintiffs filing in federal court secured their second judgment on the merits…
Continue Reading Defendants Fighting Website Accessibility Cases Face An Uphill Battle In 2018