By Kristina Launey

Last week, a California State Court became the first in the nation to rule that a retailer violated the Americans with Disabilities Act due to a website that is not accessible to individuals with vision-related disabilities. As we have previously reported, courts have ruled on whether the ADA applies to websites, but have always stopped short – because the cases had usually settled at early stages – of reaching the dispositive factual issue of whether a website actually violated the ADA.

This ruling came on a motion for summary judgment filed by plaintiff Edward Davis’s attorneys, Scott Ferrell of The Newport Trial Group, Victoria Knowles, and Roger Borg. Judge Bryan Foster of the San Bernardino Superior Court ruled that the defendant luggage retailer violated the ADA and corollary California law – the Unruh Act – because plaintiff “presented sufficient evidence that he was denied full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, privileges, and accommodations offered by defendant [via its website] because of his disability.” The judge also found sufficient evidence that Title III of the ADA applied to the website because there was a sufficient nexus to defendant’s physical retail store and the website.

The judge ordered the retailer to pay $4,000 in statutory damages under the Unruh Act, finding it undisputed that plaintiff’s access to the website was prevented at the time it was designed. The judge ordered injunctive relief in the form of defendant taking steps necessary to make the subject website “readily accessible to and useable by individuals with visual impairments or to terminate the website”; but provided no detail on whether a certain standard would need to be met to have complied with this injunctive relief order. The plaintiff will also be entitled to attorneys’ fees as the prevailing party, which could be substantial given the discovery and briefing involved in the motion for summary judgment.

This order ironically came during the same week virtually all scientists, practitioners (including me), educators, government officials, companies, advocates, and interested individuals with disabilities were attending digital accessibility’s major annual conference – California State University, Northridge’s 31st Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference- just a few hundred miles away from the court.