ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit: An Online Beauty Product Retailer
Plaintiff's Firm: WILSHIRE LAW FIRM
Case Summary
Plaintiff Portia Mason, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, has filed a class action lawsuit against an online cosmetic product retailer. The complaint, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, was filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on August 6, 2021, and is represented by WILSHIRE LAW FIRM.
The lawsuit details multiple accessibility barriers on the defendant's website, including a lack of alternative text for non-text elements, missing title frames for identification and navigation, equivalent text not provided for scripts, and inaccessible forms. Further issues include content not conveyed by more than visual presentation, text not resizable up to 200% without loss of functionality, content enforcing time limits without user control, web pages lacking descriptive titles, and link purposes not determinable from text alone. Additional violations involve keyboard operable user interfaces without discernible focus indicators, undetermined default human language, context changes on component focus, unadvised context changes on user interface component setting changes, missing labels or instructions for user input, and markup language issues such as incomplete tags, improper nesting, duplicate attributes, or non-unique IDs. The complaint also cites inaccessible Portable Document Formats (PDFs) and user interface elements lacking programmatically determined names, roles, or notification of changes.
This action highlights the ongoing legal risks for e-commerce platforms, particularly those in the beauty and cosmetics industry, that fail to adhere to digital accessibility standards like WCAG 2.1. Businesses operating websites that deny full and equal access to blind and visually-impaired individuals may face significant legal challenges under ADA Title III and similar state laws, potentially resulting in mandatory injunctive relief to remediate access barriers and statutory damages.
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Case Q&A
What specific WCAG violations is this online beauty product retailer accused of?
The online beauty product retailer is accused of lacking alternative text for non-text elements, missing title frames, not providing equivalent text for scripts, inaccessible forms, content not conveyed beyond visual presentation, non-resizable text, enforcing time limits, web pages without descriptive titles, ambiguous link purposes, keyboard navigation issues, undetermined default language, context changes on focus, unadvised context changes, missing labels/instructions for user input, markup language errors, inaccessible PDFs, and unprogrammatically determined UI element names/roles.
Who filed this lawsuit, and which law firm?
The lawsuit was filed by Portia Mason, individually and on behalf of a proposed class, and is represented by WILSHIRE LAW FIRM.
What legal risk does this create?
This case demonstrates the legal risk for businesses whose websites are not fully accessible to visually-impaired individuals. Non-compliant sites can lead to class action lawsuits, requiring extensive remediation under court order and potential statutory damages under laws like the ADA Title III and Unruh Civil Rights Act.