The constellation Canis Major rises and falls with the sun during the hottest part July and August; hence the “dog days of summer.” Although only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun* the courts have been busy working in air conditioned chambers on ADA and FHA matters:
Just what is an accessible website?
Wright v. Thread Experiment, LLC, 2021 WL 243604, at *4 (S.D. Ind., Jan. 22, 2021) is a default judgment case, but it remains interesting because the Court expressly declined to order compliance with any version of WCAG, choosing instead to enter a much less specific permanent injunction ordering that the Defendant be enjoined:
from operating, utilizing, or maintaining www.threadexperiment.com unless and until it fully complies with the requirements of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq., and its implementing regulations, 28 CFR § 36.302 et seq. Defendant is ORDERED to modify the existing features of www.threadexperiment.com and to remove barriers that prevent this website’s compatibility with screen reading technology so that it is accessible to blind or low-vision individuals utilizing screen reading technology.
The first sentence of this injunction seems to violate the general rule against injunctions that simply order compliance with the law. See, e.g., E.E.O.C. v. AutoZone, Inc., 707 F.3d 824, 842 (7th Cir. 2013). As the Court observes, there are no regulatory requirements for websites, so the first sentence is just an order to follow the ADA. More
Early last month the Department of Justice filed a “Statement of Interest” in Migyanko v. Aimbridge Hospitality LLC¹ that should give pause to every business subject to Title III of the ADA; that is, every business. Two sentences from the Statement of Interest are of particular concern:
Once again – as in past Memorial Day editions – I’m firing up the grill with hundred dollar bills in honor of the money wasted on lawyers, who are the only ones who really benefit from most ADA and FHA litigation. There are, however, some cases dealing addressing important substantive issues, and few in which Courts seem ready to turn the ADA and FHA into laws to help people instead of laws to make lawyers rich. 
On October 7-8 I’ll be joining Jason Taylor of Usablenet and Jeremy Horlick of ADA Site Compliance at American University’s Digital Accessibility Legal Summit in a panel discussion of accessibility overlays, widgets and plug-ins titled “The Great Accessibility Overlays Battle.” You can find the complete program at 
I had forgotten that this classic song was from Loggins & Messina until I looked it up after getting an old demand letter packaged by a new firm. I have blogged before about Legal Justice Advocates, a front for a group of attorneys who sent hundreds of demand letters making unsustainable claims about website accessibility under the Fair Housing Act.¹ Their business was taken over by the Portell Law Group² when the original members of LJA dropped out of sight and one of them, Ilya Torchinsky, lost his license to practice. Now another member of the group, Jerome Ramsaran, has incorporated a new supposed disability rights group, Pursuit of Respect, Inc., which is pursuing the old business of making demands on website owners in different real estate related businesses. I know this because I was recently provided a demand letter sent by a lawyer in Chicago who also practices in Florida, the original home of Legal Justice Advocates. J. Kevin Benjamin is the lawyer sending demands on behalf of Pursuit of Respect, Inc. Unlike the claims from Legal Justice Advocates and the Portell Law Group Benjamin’s claims include ADA allegations, and unlike the LJA and Portell Claims the letters from Benjamin give the recipient fourteen days to correct the supposed website violations before there is a threat of a money demand. Of course the demands do not include any details about the supposed problems, and fourteen days is an impossible period for website remediation under the best circumstances. I expect the soft touch is intended to get an equally soft response that lets Benjamin solicit some kind of payment, and once the fourteen days are up there will probably be a stronger money demand.