The U.S. Department of Justice has yet to release long-promised clarifications on the Americans with Disabilities Act that would help judges handle lawsuits that claim businesses’ websites are not handicap-accessible - and the blame isn't on just one of the country's last two, very different presidents.
“The DOJ, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, is responsible for the onslaught of these lawsuits,” says Minh Vu, a Seyfarth Shaw attorney who specializes in such lawsuits.
First announced in 2010, the DOJ was eventually expected to release much-anticipated clarifications in 2016 to the Americans with Disabilities Act Title III, but pushed the release date to 2018. The law originated in the 1990s before the internet was so widely used and only mentions businesses' brick-and-mortar locations.
Regulations that would have helped businesses determine whether their websites are ADA-compliant aren't coming from the DOJ, though. Late last year, it chose to withdraw proposed rules, likely creating a patchwork of decisions from judges that will confuse businesses facing these lawsuits.
In just a few months, 2018 has continued to see the onslaught of ADA Title III lawsuits that 2017 saw. The lawsuits brought by plaintiffs against retailers claim the businesses violate the ADA by not having handicap-accessible websites. Cases are brought by both deaf and blind plaintiffs.
Without any rules set, Vu stated “the number of website accessibility lawsuits is not likely to go down for at least a few years."
Seyfarth Shaw's research found that more than 800 lawsuits were filed in 2017 over allegedly inaccessible websites.