ADA Website Lawsuits: How to Protect Your Business From Legal Action
# ADA Website Lawsuits: How to Protect Your Business From Legal Action
ADA website lawsuits have become one of the fastest-growing categories of civil litigation in the United States. Every year, thousands of businesses — from Fortune 500 corporations to single-employee online shops — receive demand letters or face formal legal complaints alleging that their websites are inaccessible to people with disabilities. The financial consequences are significant, the reputational damage is real, and the legal landscape is only getting more aggressive. If your business has a website, this is a risk you cannot afford to ignore.
This guide breaks down exactly what the Americans with Disabilities Act requires for your digital presence, why enforcement has accelerated so dramatically, and what concrete steps you can take right now to reduce your exposure.
What Does the ADA Require for Websites?
The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990, long before the commercial internet existed. Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination by "places of public accommodation," a category that originally referred to physical locations like restaurants, hotels, and retail stores.
The critical legal question for the past decade has been whether websites qualify as places of public accommodation. Courts across the country have increasingly answered yes.
The DOJ's Position on Web Accessibility
The U.S. Department of Justice has consistently taken the position that the ADA applies to websites. In 2022, the DOJ issued updated guidance explicitly stating that web accessibility is covered under Title III. In 2024, the DOJ went further by publishing a final rule under Title II requiring state and local government websites to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA standard.
While the Title II rule applies directly to government entities, it sends an unmistakable signal about where federal enforcement priorities are heading for private businesses under Title III. Courts have already been citing WCAG 2.1 AA as the benchmark in private litigation for years.
WCAG 2.1 AA: The De Facto Legal Standard
Although no federal statute explicitly mandates WCAG compliance for private-sector websites, WCAG 2.1 Level AA has emerged as the standard that courts, regulators, and plaintiffs' attorneys use to evaluate accessibility. The guidelines are organized around four principles. Your website must be:
- Perceivable — Content must be presentable in ways that all users can detect, including those who are blind, deaf, or have low vision.
- Operable — Navigation and interactive elements must work for users who rely on keyboards, voice commands, or assistive technologies instead of a mouse.
- Understandable — Text must be readable, interfaces must behave predictably, and users must receive help avoiding and correcting errors.
- Robust — Content must be compatible with current and reasonably future assistive technologies, including screen readers.
Failing to meet these criteria is what exposes your business to ADA website lawsuits.
ADA Website Lawsuit Trends: The Numbers Are Alarming
The volume of digital accessibility lawsuits filed in the United States has grown substantially over the past several years. The trend line is steep and shows no sign of flattening.
Year-Over-Year Growth
Industry analyses consistently show that federal ADA website accessibility lawsuits have grown from a few hundred per year in the mid-2010s to several thousand per year by the mid-2020s. When you add state-level filings — particularly under aggressive state laws in New York and California — the total number of annual claims is even higher. Some estimates place the combined federal and state total well above four thousand filings per year.
These numbers do not capture the full picture. Many disputes are resolved through pre-litigation demand letters that never appear in court records. For every lawsuit that gets filed, multiple additional businesses receive demand letters threatening legal action unless they pay a settlement and remediate their websites.
Who Is Getting Sued?
A common misconception is that only large companies get targeted. The reality is quite different:
- E-commerce businesses of all sizes are frequent targets, because online stores have clear commercial functions that courts readily classify as places of public accommodation.
- Small and mid-sized businesses are often preferred targets for serial plaintiffs because smaller companies are more likely to settle quickly rather than endure expensive litigation.
- Restaurants, hotels, and service providers with online booking or ordering systems face elevated risk because their websites are direct extensions of their physical operations.
- Healthcare providers face both ADA exposure and additional regulatory pressure around patient portal accessibility.
No industry is immune. If your website offers goods, services, or information to the public, you are within the scope of potential enforcement.
The Rise of Serial Plaintiffs
A significant portion of ADA website lawsuits are filed by a relatively small number of plaintiffs and law firms that specialize in high-volume accessibility litigation. Some individual plaintiffs have been named in hundreds of lawsuits. Courts have occasionally pushed back on perceived abuse of the litigation process, but the fundamental legal claims remain valid — if a website is inaccessible, the ADA provides a cause of action regardless of the plaintiff's motives.
This means your website does not need to attract the attention of a dissatisfied customer with a disability. It only needs to be found by one of the plaintiffs' firms that systematically scan the internet for accessibility violations and file claims at scale.
Common Website Issues That Trigger ADA Lawsuits
Understanding what accessibility failures actually look like in practice is essential for evaluating your own risk. The following issues appear repeatedly in ADA website complaints.
Missing or Inadequate Alternative Text
Images without descriptive alt text are invisible to screen reader users. This is one of the most frequently cited violations in accessibility lawsuits. Every meaningful image on your site — product photos, informational graphics, icons that convey function — needs accurate alternative text.
Inaccessible Forms and Checkout Processes
If a user who relies on a screen reader or keyboard navigation cannot complete a purchase, submit a contact form, or book an appointment on your website, that is a serious accessibility barrier. Common problems include form fields without associated labels, error messages that are not announced to assistive technology, and submit buttons that cannot be activated with a keyboard.
Poor Color Contrast
Text that does not have sufficient contrast against its background is difficult or impossible to read for users with low vision or color vision deficiencies. WCAG 2.1 AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Many modern website designs prioritize aesthetics over readability and fail this requirement.
Keyboard Navigation Failures
Not all users can operate a mouse. Users with motor disabilities, visual impairments, or certain neurological conditions depend on keyboard navigation. If your website has dropdown menus, modals, carousels, or interactive elements that cannot be reached and operated with the Tab and Enter keys alone, you have a keyboard accessibility gap.
Missing Page Structure and Headings
Screen readers rely on proper HTML heading hierarchy (H1, H2, H3) and landmark regions to help users navigate pages efficiently. Websites that use headings purely for visual styling — or that skip heading levels — create a confusing and disorienting experience for users of assistive technology.
Auto-Playing Media Without Controls
Video or audio content that plays automatically without accessible controls to pause, stop, or adjust volume creates barriers for users with auditory, cognitive, or seizure-related disabilities.
Third-Party Content and Widgets
Your liability extends to third-party components embedded on your site. Chat widgets, embedded maps, social media feeds, payment processors, and booking engines that are not accessible can all be the basis for an ADA claim against your business — even though you did not develop them.
The Real Cost of an ADA Website Lawsuit
Business owners often underestimate the financial and operational impact of an accessibility lawsuit until they are in the middle of one.
Legal Fees and Settlement Costs
Defending an ADA website lawsuit typically costs tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, even if you prevail. Most businesses choose to settle rather than litigate, with settlement amounts commonly ranging from several thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. Repeat or class-action claims can be significantly more expensive.
Injunctive Relief and Remediation Deadlines
Courts and settlement agreements typically require the defendant to bring their website into WCAG conformance within a fixed timeline, often six months to a year. Rushed remediation under legal pressure is almost always more expensive than proactive compliance work done on your own schedule.
Reputational Damage
An ADA lawsuit becomes a matter of public record. For consumer-facing brands, the association with disability discrimination — even if the lawsuit is ultimately resolved — can erode customer trust and generate negative press coverage.
Ongoing Monitoring Obligations
Many settlement agreements require businesses to conduct periodic accessibility audits and submit compliance reports for a period of years. This creates ongoing administrative costs that extend well beyond the initial resolution.
How to Protect Your Business From ADA Website Lawsuits
The most effective defense against an ADA website lawsuit is straightforward: make your website accessible before a plaintiff's attorney finds the violations for you. Here is a practical roadmap.
Step 1: Conduct a Comprehensive Accessibility Audit
You cannot fix what you have not identified. Start with a thorough audit of your website against WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria. This should combine automated scanning tools — which can efficiently detect many technical violations — with manual testing that evaluates the real user experience for people who rely on assistive technology.
Automated tools alone are not sufficient. Industry research consistently indicates that automated scanners can detect only a portion of WCAG violations. The remaining issues require human judgment to identify.
Step 2: Prioritize and Remediate Critical Issues
Not all accessibility issues carry equal legal risk. Focus first on the barriers that prevent users from completing core tasks on your website:
- Can a screen reader user navigate your site and understand the content?
- Can a keyboard-only user complete a purchase, fill out a form, or access essential information?
- Is your content readable for users with low vision?
Fix these critical-path issues first, then work through the remaining violations systematically.
Step 3: Address Your Design and Development Process
One-time fixes are not enough. Accessibility must be integrated into your ongoing design and development workflow. Every new page, feature, or content update should be evaluated for accessibility before it goes live. Train your team on accessibility fundamentals. Include accessibility acceptance criteria in your development process.
Step 4: Publish an Accessibility Statement
An accessibility statement on your website demonstrates good faith and provides users with a way to report barriers they encounter. While an accessibility statement alone does not shield you from litigation, it signals that your organization takes accessibility seriously and is actively working toward compliance. Include contact information so users can request assistance or report issues.
Step 5: Implement Continuous Monitoring
Web accessibility is not a one-time project. Websites change constantly — new content is added, plugins are updated, designs are refreshed. Each change can introduce new accessibility barriers. Continuous monitoring ensures that you catch and fix regressions before they become the basis for a legal complaint.
Step 6: Document Your Compliance Efforts
Maintain records of your accessibility audits, remediation work, and ongoing monitoring. If your business does face a legal challenge, documented evidence of good-faith efforts to achieve and maintain compliance can significantly strengthen your legal position and may influence settlement negotiations in your favor.
Accessibility Overlays: Do They Protect You?
Some businesses turn to accessibility overlay widgets — JavaScript tools that add a toolbar to your website claiming to fix accessibility issues automatically. It is important to understand that these overlays have significant limitations.
Multiple major accessibility advocacy organizations have publicly criticized overlay products. Overlays generally cannot fix underlying code-level accessibility problems. They may interfere with the assistive technology that users already rely on. And critically, overlay widgets have not prevented businesses from being sued. Several companies have faced ADA lawsuits specifically while using overlay products on their websites.
Genuine accessibility requires fixing your website's code, content, and design — not layering a cosmetic tool on top of existing barriers.
The Legal Landscape Is Only Getting Stricter
Several developments suggest that ADA website enforcement will continue to intensify:
- Federal rulemaking is expanding. The DOJ's Title II web accessibility rule establishes a regulatory precedent that may extend to private-sector requirements under Title III.
- State laws are adding new obligations. States like New York and Colorado have enacted or proposed legislation that creates additional accessibility requirements beyond the federal ADA.
- Plaintiff activity is growing. The infrastructure of serial accessibility litigation — specialized law firms, automated violation scanning, established legal precedents — continues to mature.
- Consumer expectations are rising. As digital accessibility awareness grows among the general public, businesses that fail to provide accessible experiences face increasing pressure from customers, not just attorneys.
Waiting to address accessibility is a strategy that becomes riskier with every passing quarter.
Take the First Step Today
The businesses that avoid ADA website lawsuits are the ones that take accessibility seriously before a demand letter arrives. You do not need to achieve perfect compliance overnight, but you do need to start with a clear understanding of where your website stands today.
AccessGuard's free website accessibility scanner gives you an instant snapshot of the accessibility issues on your site. In minutes, you can identify the violations that put your business at legal risk and get actionable guidance on how to fix them.
Do not wait for a plaintiff's attorney to audit your website for you. Run your free scan with AccessGuard now and take control of your compliance before it becomes someone else's decision.