ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit: Online Clothing Company
Plaintiff's Firm: LAW OFFICE OF AMANDA BENEDICT
Case Summary
Richard Cooks, represented by the LAW OFFICE OF AMANDA BENEDICT, filed a class action lawsuit against an online clothing company in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on January 17, 2020. The complaint alleges violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, asserting that the e-commerce website is not fully and equally accessible to blind and visually-impaired individuals who rely on screen-reading software.
The complaint details numerous website accessibility barriers including, but not limited to, a lack of alternative text for graphical images, missing label elements or title attributes for fields, broken links, and the inability to determine the purpose of links from their text or context. Further allegations include web pages lacking descriptive titles, insufficient headings and labels, an invisible keyboard focus indicator, and the default human language of web pages not being programmatically determinable. Additionally, the website is cited for not providing labels or instructions for user input, preventing text resizing up to 200% without loss of content, and lacking a mechanism to bypass blocks of repeated content. Other issues involve an incorrect reading sequence where content order affects meaning, markup language problems like incomplete tags and non-unique IDs, and UI elements whose name and role cannot be programmatically determined.
This lawsuit underscores the significant legal exposure for businesses operating e-commerce websites if their digital platforms fail to comply with ADA Title III accessibility standards, specifically WCAG 2.1 AA. Non-compliance can lead to demands for comprehensive injunctive relief requiring remediation of accessibility barriers, potential statutory damages, and attorneys' fees, impacting similar online retailers that serve the general public.
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Case Q&A
What specific WCAG violations is this online clothing company accused of?
The online clothing company is accused of numerous WCAG violations, including missing alt text for graphical images, failure to add label elements or title attributes for fields, broken links, inability to determine link purpose from text, lack of page titles, and an invisible keyboard focus indicator. Other issues include text that cannot be resized to 200% without content loss and incorrect reading sequences affecting content meaning.
Who filed this lawsuit, and which law firm?
Richard Cooks filed this class action lawsuit, represented by the LAW OFFICE OF AMANDA BENEDICT.
What legal risk does this create?
This lawsuit highlights the legal risk for e-commerce businesses if their websites are not fully accessible to visually impaired users, potentially leading to demands for injunctive relief to remediate accessibility barriers, statutory minimum damages, and attorneys' fees under ADA Title III and state civil rights acts.