ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuit: A California Restaurant

Plaintiff Nataly Morales, represented by Wilshire Law Firm, PLC, filed a class action complaint on August 24, 2021, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. The lawsuit targets a California limited liability company operating an online restaurant experience, alleging that its website is not fully accessible to blind and visually impaired individuals, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act.

The complaint details numerous accessibility barriers, including the absence of alternative text for non-text elements and images, missing title frames for identification and navigation, lack of equivalent text for scripts, forms not providing the same functionality as for sighted users, content meaning not conveyed non-visually, and text that cannot be resized without functionality loss. Further alleged violations include time limits without user adjustment, web pages lacking descriptive titles, unclear link purposes, non-discernible keyboard focus indicators, undetermined default human language, context changes on focus or setting changes without user advice, missing labels/instructions for user input, incomplete markup languages, inaccessible Portable Document Formats (PDFs), and unprogrammatically determined User Interface element names and roles.

This litigation highlights significant legal exposure for businesses, particularly those in the hospitality sector with integrated online and physical operations. Such entities face substantial risks under federal and state accessibility laws if their digital platforms fail to meet established web content accessibility guidelines, potentially leading to class action lawsuits and demands for injunctive relief and statutory damages.