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Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

latimes.com

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Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#131

Post by jpollock »

tylerl wrote: post #91
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restaurants don’t need a Braille menu to accommodate blind customers, a sighted employee can walk them through the ordering process. With websites that’s not always an option, which is legally and morally an issue.

It's curious then that they're suing Domino's. Domino's has a phone number, and every capability the company offers over the web it offers over the phone. In fact, since this business in particular was built on telephone-based ordering, the the phone option is actually the first-class experience, with the web offering only a fraction of the options otherwise available. So at least in this case, ordering pizza over th…

I believe the lawsuit is that there were deals which were web-only - meaning the blind person could not take advantage of them.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#132

Post by ncallaway »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #88
couchand wrote: post #77

Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. They declined to hear Domino's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's (unanimous and clearly correctly decided) reversal of the District Court's absurd dismissal. Domino's tried to claim that their due process rights were being violated since there is no federally-mandated standard for accessibility. But the ADA is clear: business…

And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired. What I find appauling is I need to be disabled to demand a website that doesn't require font.js and 600 trackers to run, that doesn't intercept my scroll wheel or make me use a Google product for captcha. hyper text mark up language is dead. Long live the world wide web.

> And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired.

Well, now, as developers we have more ammunition to backup the moral obligation.

Now we can demand the time to validate that a site is compliant with WCAG 2.0, and point to this ruling as a legal mandate to do so.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#133

Post by tyingq »

rhizome wrote: post #103
tyingq wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there's probably two goals here. Making it work well, and avoiding a lawsuit. I imagine the latter involves a lot more work.

There are two goals only if you don't do the first one. It's like saying the two biggest goals in owning a knife: not stabbing people and staying out of prison.

Surely you don't think I meant something that simplistic. Of course the first goal is what matters. However, pretending there aren't people that will hunt for technicalities is naive.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#134

Post by [deleted] »

Pinckney wrote: post #59
chrisco255 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why Domino's having a phone number to call in orders isn't enough of an accommodation in this case?

My understanding, from a quick 5 minute skim, is that it may be. It's being sent back to the district court for reconsideration. Basically what seems to have happened is this: 1. Robles sued Dominoes alleging their website violated the ADA. 2. The district court dismissed the suit, saying the DOJ needs to provide guidance on the standards that websites must meet, if the court is to hold them to the ADA. They don't ex…

[deleted]

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#135

Post by couchand »

chrisco255 wrote: post #42
tibbon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a myth that reasonable accommodations are too much of a burden for a small business to handle. Having a menu made into Braille for example isn’t going to cost a ton. On the upside, they would also now have business available that they didn’t have in the past.

I wonder why Domino's having a phone number to call in orders isn't enough of an accommodation in this case?

From footnote 4:

> However, the district court did not reach whether a genuine issue of material fact existed as to the telephone hotline’s compliance with the ADA, including whether the hotline guaranteed full and equal enjoyment and "protect[ed] the privacy and independence of the individual with a disability." ... We believe that the mere presence of the phone number, without discovery on its effectiveness, is insufficient to grant summary judgment in favor of Domino’s.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#136

Post by edoo »

lftl wrote: post #121
edoo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely incorrect. Denying someone service is completely different than them being unable to access your business because you can't afford to build out the accommodations. The constitution first and foremost guarantees freedom. Being forced to work at gunpoint is known as slavery.

So I take it you're opposed to the ADA in general?

Absolutely except for federal buildings. The powers not expressly given to the federal government in the constitution are reserved to the states. At worse it should be a states rights issue with each state deciding their own way.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#137

Post by thomasedwards »

rgoldste wrote: post #119
mltony wrote: post #74

Blind programmer here. Just a glimpse of my life. Blind people have to live in an environment where X% of web sites and programs are not accessible, where X varies somewhere from 20% (for web sites) to 50% (for desktop applications). That's just my approximation of the state of accessibility these days. Now imagine that you live in the world where you don't know which printer or wi-fi router to buy, since maybe half…

Curious, not trying to be a jerk. For something like ordering pizza (or even plane tickets), how much worse is calling to make the order as opposed to ordering online?

Obviously you should just be allowed to use the same services as everyone else. The web is accessible by design, so all sites that are not accessible are broken. The people that made them broke them.

But, just for the sake of your curiosity, American Airlines charge $35 per ticket[1] when you call them to book.

[1] https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/support/optional-se...

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#138

Post by mltony »

rgoldste wrote: post #119
mltony wrote: post #74

Blind programmer here. Just a glimpse of my life. Blind people have to live in an environment where X% of web sites and programs are not accessible, where X varies somewhere from 20% (for web sites) to 50% (for desktop applications). That's just my approximation of the state of accessibility these days. Now imagine that you live in the world where you don't know which printer or wi-fi router to buy, since maybe half…

Curious, not trying to be a jerk. For something like ordering pizza (or even plane tickets), how much worse is calling to make the order as opposed to ordering online?

It depends. If I know I'll make an order only once, calling phone is probably easier. If that's a pizza, and say I have expectation that I might be ordering same pizza every week or every month, then ordering through website is easier, since you can save your credit card information there instead of repeating it on the phone every time. But even for one-time orders it is good to have an accessible site, since what I mentioned above - I would waste my time if the web site is not accessible. I assume if they had put a notice on their web site saying that it is not accessible for screenreaders - please call this number instead - that would be already a better solution rather than just an inaccessible web site.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#139

Post by tyingq »

freeone3000 wrote: post #122
tyingq wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there's probably two goals here. Making it work well, and avoiding a lawsuit. I imagine the latter involves a lot more work.

In my experience, it's a lot LESS work. Fair or not, the people reviewing accessibility standards are likely not disabled, and the mere functioning of a website is enough to pass WCAG 2.0. It doesn't have to work well - all of the bits that make a website nice are at level AAA or are advisory, and the government's claim here is that Level A Sufficient would be enough, it just has to work.

The people filing civil lawsuits generally are disabled, since they would be the only ones that could. A civil suit doesn't just get thrown out because you passed WCAG.

Re: Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible

#140

Post by DoreenMichele »

tylerl wrote: post #107
notyourwork wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like they missed a demographic with their strategy. It shouldn’t be hard to add accessibility support to their site.

I think that misses the point. There's a mile of difference between adding sufficient accessibility to serve a demographic vs adding new legal requirements. (Especially new requirements for which customers are financially incentivised to file suits, and for it's trivially simple to code up automated scanning to find businesses you can target.)

Most handicapped people live in poverty. I'm quite convinced that a lot of privileged people are also moderately or significantly handicapped and hiding it. If you are important enough, people meet all your whackadoodle requirements without wondering why in the hell you can't do it "normally."

I've been in situations where I had privilege and I've been in situations where I couldn't get adequate accommodation for my handicap. Having privilege usually beats the tar out of having handicap accommodation.

If there are any genuinely blind people managing to supposedly "game the system" in the manner you describe, more power to them. Because trying to play it straight and do the right thing and earn my way and blah blah blah mostly seems to get me absolutely crapped all over.

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