ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit: A Luxury Automotive Dealership
Plaintiff's Firm: WILSHIRE LAW FIRM
Case Summary
Brett DeSalvo, represented by Wilshire Law Firm, has filed an ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuit against an automotive dealership in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on February 26, 2021. The plaintiff, who is visually impaired and uses screen reading software, alleges that the defendant's website is not fully and equally accessible, denying him and other blind individuals full use and enjoyment of its online services and products in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The complaint details numerous WCAG violations, including a lack of alternative text for non-text elements and linked images, empty links without descriptive text, and redundant links. Further alleged issues involve inaccessible Portable Document Format (PDFs), title frames without text for identification, forms lacking equivalent information for sighted users, content structure not conveyed visually, and text that cannot be resized without functionality loss. The website also reportedly enforces time limits without user control, lacks descriptive page titles, has indeterminate link purposes, and features keyboard operable user interfaces without discernible focus indicators. Other technical barriers include programmatically undetermined default human language, automatic context changes, missing labels/instructions for user input, and HTML markup errors such as incomplete tags, improper nesting, duplicate attributes, or non-unique IDs, making User Interface elements unprogrammatically determinable.
This action highlights the significant legal risks faced by online automotive retailers and other e-commerce platforms that fail to ensure their websites are fully accessible to visually impaired users. Such businesses may face similar ADA Title III and Unruh Civil Rights Act lawsuits, leading to demands for injunctive relief to remediate accessibility barriers, statutory damages, and attorneys' fees.
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Case Q&A
What specific WCAG violations is this automotive dealership accused of?
The automotive dealership is accused of numerous WCAG violations, including lacking alternative text for images, having empty and redundant links, inaccessible PDFs, and issues with keyboard navigation, forms, page titles, and programmatic determination of UI elements.
Who filed this lawsuit, and which law firm?
Brett DeSalvo filed this lawsuit, represented by Wilshire Law Firm.
What legal risk does this create?
This lawsuit creates a legal risk for other automotive dealerships and online retailers if their websites are not fully accessible to visually impaired individuals, potentially resulting in similar litigation, injunctive orders for remediation, and financial penalties.