Just a quick note for those who want to hear as well as read what I have to say. The Accessible.org podcast interview is available now at any of the following links:
By Richard Hunt in ADA, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Web Access, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: accessible.org, ADA defense, ADA Internet, ADA website, FHA Defense, Kris Rivenburgh, WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1
Just a quick note for those who want to hear as well as read what I have to say. The Accessible.org podcast interview is available now at any of the following links:
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Web Access, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: ADA defense, ADA Internet, website accessibility, Website litigation, website overlays, Website widgets
This is going to be an unusual blog because most of it will be in a footnote of sorts. The legal part of the blog is easy. If your business wants to avoid getting sued under the ADA because of an inaccessible website an accessibility overlay or widget isn’t going to help you. I can say this with some certainty because in the last two weeks alone five lawsuits have been filed against businesses that use an accessibility widget or overlay on their websites.* I also know why this is the case. The law firms who file website accessibility lawsuits and their pet clients start the process of finding a target using automated tools that scan for compliance with the technical requirements of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 or 2.1. I have used those tools on websites using an overlay or widget and they almost always flag errors of some kind. There is a lot a dispute about the effectiveness of these scanning tools, but effective or not getting flagged by one of them is an invitation to a lawsuit. If a widget doesn’t fix the errors plaintiff’s lawyers can find using automated tools it won’t prevent a lawsuit. The conclusion is simple. If avoiding litigation is your goal an overlay or widget won’t do the trick. More
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Website Accessibility Tags: ADA defense, ADA Internet, ADA standing, ADA website, FHA Defense, National Association of the Deaf, National Federation for the Blind, point of sale devices
Happy Valentine’s Day. The last few weeks have brought the usual assortment of cases, some of more interest than others. I’ll lead with a personal jurisdiction case that has the potential to be important for website accessibility lawsuits.
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA FHA General, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Litigation Procedure, ADA Movies, ADA Web Access, ADA Website Accessibility, FHA, FHA design/build litigation, Internet, Internet Accessibility Tags: ADA defense, ADA Internet, ADA Mootness, ADA website, Brintley v Aeroquip, Closed Captioning, CUNA, FHA Defense, Olmstead, Readily Achievable, Rehabilitation Act
I’ve been posting a lot of blogs in the last few days in an effort to catch up with a backlog of important or at least interesting cases. Just as I was wrapping up this Quick Hits blog the Sixth Circuit handed down its decision in Brintley v. Aeroquip Credit Union, precipitating the blog’s publication. Subscribers who feel they are being spammed can rest assured the pace of posts will slacken – assuming the pace of ADA and FHA accessibility developments slackens, of course. More
By Richard Hunt in Accessibility Litigation Trends, ADA - drive-by litigation, ADA - serial litigation, ADA - Standing, ADA Attorney's Fees, ADA Internet, ADA Internet Web, ADA Policies Tags: ADA defense, ADA Internet, ADA website, CSUN Assistive, Lainey Feingold, WCAG
I’m just departing from the 2019 Assistive Technology Conference with a few prejudices confirmed but with some new ideas as well.
I spoke with a number of companies that sell consulting services for web accessibility based on a wide range of business models. Since the website litigation storm broke in 2015 the field has developed, but there is still no good accessibility solution for a small retail store or restaurant. Simple websites are less likely to have accessibility issues, but their owners are heavily dependent on small, independent web designers and developers who often live in blissful ignorance of accessibility issues. Twenty-five years after passage of the ADA strip shopping centers that don’t meet ADA standards are still being built because smaller contractors and one person architecture firms don’t know about or understand the construction standards. The same thing will be true for web accessibility twenty-five years from now if we don’t find a way to educate the web design community about it. For those who don’t want to wait the following link has a list of resources from Lainey Feingold’s website. Resources. More