News & Regulations
At the start of 2025, we will review the past year and what happened in the web accessibility world.
As you know, there are numerous governing laws regarding online accessibility for people with disabilities, depending on where your business operates. So, it’s not unusual that in 2024, many companies were affected by accessibility lawsuits.
In this blog post, we are going to look at the statistics and try to understand why website accessibility lawsuits are becoming more common.
Definition of Web Accessibility and Its Importance
Web accessibility is the inclusive practice of making the online world more easily manageable for people with disabilities. It includes ways and tools to make the Internet an easier place to perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with people with any kind of physical or cognitive impairment.
Equal access benefits all – not only people with medical disabilities but also those who struggle with old age, have some kind of temporary disability, etc.
Web accessibility has four governing principles that are part of the core guidelines of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). The recommendations are developed and updated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and are widely considered the foundations of any modern governing law about online accessibility.
The WCAG can be divided into four parts as follows:
- Perceivable – all information online should be easily perceivable by people with any type of limitations.
- Operable – webpages have to be easy to navigate and operate by all users, including those with disabilities.
- Understandable – content and user interface have to be understandable to everyone.
- Robust – content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide variety of users, using all sorts of assistive technologies.
Based on the WCAG, laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the European Accessibility Act (EAA) are devised. These are the main laws that take care of WCAG compliance, but there are many more depending on local governments.
In this blog post, we are going to concentrate on the lawsuits under the ADA.
Source: Unsplash
Current State of Web Accessibility Lawsuits
In the past years, there has been a steady increase in web accessibility cases. Every year, more and more plaintiffs aim to defend their rights to access the digital world.
In 2019 there were approximately 2256 lawsuits on web accessibility filed in federal court. The biggest increase was in 2022 when the total number of lawsuits was 3255.
In 2023 there was a notable decrease in the number to 2794 lawsuits, which is a 14% drop from 2022.
Info and Statistics for 2024
Although the final numbers for 2024 aren’t in yet, we have a very good picture of the situation.
In the first half of last year there were around 4280 ADA federal lawsuits. Estimates of law firms are that the yearly number would be above 8000 lawsuits if the upwards trend continued during the second half of the year.
As you can see, even the first half of 2024 was record breaking in terms of total number of filed lawsuits.
An article in the Wall Street Journal highlights that the sector that was most affected was eCommerce. These types of businesses faced the highest number of ADA lawsuits in the first half of 2024 – 29,9% of the total. The second online sector that was under scrutiny for web accessibility was the food service industry.
One other key highlight was that most cases were filed in California and New York state. In the first half of 2024, California saw 1588 ADA lawsuits and New York – 1106.
Wall Street Journal states also that despite company efforts like implementing accessibility widgets, devising special strategies, and adding accessibility features to websites, the increase in lawsuits is notable. Different reports on the matter provide valuable insights and state that these efforts often failed to mitigate legal challenges and, in some cases, even created additional barriers for users with disabilities.
Source: Unsplash
Companies affected by lawsuits
Although lists of companies that came under fire for web accessibility are not publicly accessible, we do know about various big companies that had ongoing legal battles in 2024.
In the eCommerce sector, the most notable examples are Amazon, Walmart and Target. Amazon was under fire because of ongoing inaccessible product descriptions and navigation issues. Walmart and Target both were part of ongoing legal battles over digital accessibility.
For the food service and hospitality sector, Domino's Pizza was the most affected. The company has ongoing legal battles over its website and mobile app accessibility.
Big entertainment companies such as Netflix and Hulu also had problems in that department. Netflix still has issues with missing captions and descriptions on some of its content, and Hulu has accessibility issues with its video player controls.
Why Are Web Accessibility Lawsuits Increasing Every Year?
The main reason why web accessibility lawsuits are increasing steadily over the years is that there’s a lot more visibility on the matter.
In the past, not many people knew that there were laws governing accessibility online. Since the subject became a more popular topic, the number of lawsuits has increased.
Factors that can lead to a lawsuit
The main factor that contributes to lawsuits under ADA is that there’s still not that much information on the subject. Many companies still don’t know that there are laws looking out for inclusivity online.
Other factors that can lead to a lawsuit include:
- Failure to meet accessibility standards – websites that are not in compliance with the WCAG guidelines can be an easy target for accessibility lawsuits. That’s why it’s important to adhere to the core rules.
- Poor design and functionality of the website – accessible design is good design. Websites that are hard to navigate or lead to any obstacle for people with disabilities are at risk of lawsuits.
- No mobile app accessibility – since the online world has shifted to smaller screens, most companies struggle to achieve accessibility compliance in their mobile apps.
- No proactive measures – most companies continue to operate without providing the needed education and training on the subject of online accessibility.
One other key problem is that companies still continue to ignore customer feedback. Most companies receive thousands of emails on a daily basis about problems with their website, but still brush those off as unimportant.
Conclusion
Web accessibility is becoming more and more important with every passing year. There has been an increase in lawsuits cases in the United States over time.
Despite the fact that we still don’t know the total number of ADA related lawsuits in the US, we do know that it will be a record-breaking year. The most affected sector is eCommerce.
To mitigate the risk of lawsuits, companies must work proactively and in accord with the WCAG. Making sure that accessibility features are available on your webpage from the start or implementing them early on is a great tactic to avoid costly legal battles.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the governing principles of WCAG?
The WCAG can be divided into four key principles – all content and services online should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.
What is the total number of ADA related cases for 2024?
The total number is still unclear, but in the first half of last year there were around 4280 lawsuits filed in the United States.
What is the sector that’s been most affected by lawsuits?
The eCommerce sector saw the largest number of cases.