Supreme Court allows blind people to sue retailers if websites aren't accessible • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by gabaix » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

pakitan wrote: post #286

belltaco wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically suits that do that without warnings or asking things to be changed are thrown out immediately. The plaintiff usually has to show that they tried getting it changed through normal channels before filing a lawsuit.

The racket goes like this - a lawyer firm, specialized in this type of "work", finds a token blind person and sends you a letter to the tune of "On date such and such, our client visited your site and it wasn't accessible. Based on such and such precedent, we're not required to give you advance notice and can to sue you for $100K. However, we're reasonable people and we're willing to settle out of court for $10K, as…

did you end up settling?

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

#462

Post by voltagex_ » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

mlang23 wrote: post #435

voltagex_ wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide any examples of sites that might be using particular frameworks that are inaccessible? If open source, I reckon I could raise an issue or two on your behalf if that's OK.

I am sorry, but I dont believe that casually raising an issue here or there will actually change anything. My experience is that it either gets ignored, or you outright receive an aswer that explains to you that your needs are not important. Example 1: Reddit is on GitHub. At the time when I was still using Reddit, I was pretty pissed with its lack of helpful accessibility. So I went on GitHub, and wrote a PR which w…

Yep. I get it. I'm in a wheelchair. But I can't not try, at least in some small way. It's really frustrating that these projects don't take this stuff seriously.

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

#463

Post by CathedralBorrow » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:45 PM UTC

gabaix wrote: post #458

pakitan wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also sounds like you don't really believe that disabled folks deserve any consideration. No, that's not at all what I believe so let me clarify what my objections are. First, by its very nature "accessibility" is open to interpretation and allowing people to sue companies for non-accessible sites gives way to frivolous lawsuits. As far as I remember, there isn't even an attempt to define "accessibility" in US la…

I have met a restaurant owner who had exactly the same issue. A lawyer came into his restaurant alongside someone in a wheelchair. They noticed paper rolls were not at a correct height, threatened to sue, and let them settle for less. For the restaurant owner, it didn't seem that they genuinely cared about the accessibility problem, but rather making money off using ADA.

Could the restaurant owner have been biased against the person who is compelling them to take action that they don't want to take? I would probably take the owner's psychoanalysis of them with a grain of salt.

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

#464

Post by im3w1l » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #392

im3w1l wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an undue burden to place on a small business owner. Having to both defend in one lawsuit and sue another party when they likely aren't knowledgeable or willing to take the risk of either.

shrug That's the legal system. I didn't make it. A clause in supplier contract guaranteeing whatever - accessibility or all images being licensed covers you.

Cicrcling back to

> If this is required to get sites to give a shit about accessibility once again, great!

Given how enforcement works, I can't share your enthusiasm, and in fact I will oppose accessibility regulation.

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

#465

Post by andrewclunn » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

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…

Screw off. Its not society's responsibility to bend over for you.

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

#466

Post by mumblemumble » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

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…

As a developer, can you weigh in on why you think it might be hard for small businesses to make their web sites accessible? Are there inherent technical challenges that make it difficult to make accessible websites? Or is it that there's a constant churn of new front-end technologies that typically treat accessibility as an afterthought, and typically leave accessibility as an afterthought that will finally get properly nailed down just in time for the next new technology to come along? Or is it business problems such as the client demanding some overdesigned user experience that can only be accomplished by manually implementing non-standard input elements?

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

#467

Post by Bostonian » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

Suppose I can't use a product because of a disability. Do I sue a company for making the product available to others who can use it? The ADA says I have the legal right to do so, but the mentality that "if I can't enjoy something, nobody should" is immoral.

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

#468

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

couchand wrote: post #455

enlyth wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you surprised? He's got a product which he believes has no value to blind people and a record of exactly zero people calling to complain, but he's getting shit on by the a11y brigade anyway. I believe it should be his right to just simply say my product is not for blind people, and dedicate no resources to servicing this hypothetical user base. It's very easy to tell others to do something a certain way with a co…

> I believe it should be his right to just simply say my product is not for blind people, and dedicate no resources to servicing this hypothetical user base. Fortunately, in America we don't believe discrimination is acceptable, and we've codified that principle in the law.

Ha. The ADA has been put into law, yes. The result was reduced employment opportunities for disabled people. Because the cost of conforming to the law is prohibitive.

Apparently, in America, its more important to appear to be virtuous than to actually do good.

The law of unintended consequences.

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

#469

Post by shantly » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

charliepark wrote: post #432

34679 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it was one of the most lucrative dev jobs I did >there really is no reason for even mom and pop sites to not provide even a base level of accessibility Which is it?

Those aren't orthogonal statements. Both can be true.

If, for example, the hourly rate is high but the hours required for a typical mom & pop site are low.

Example: being a lawyer might be lucrative (just take it for the sake of argument) but their services might remain accessible to mom & pop business owners because they only need a few hours of lawyering per year, for the most part.

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

#470

Post by pakitan » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #452

enlyth wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring most of what OP is saying, he's completely right in saying he should have no obligation to dedicate huge resources to a potential 0.00001% of his customers which may or may not even exist, when the only benefit will be not getting hit by frivolous lawsuits.

> "he's completely right in saying he should have no obligation" Is he right because you agree with him? I don't think he's right. The law also doesn't think he's right. There's also quite a few assumptions that you seem to have made in not very good faith, because how could you know how much effort it would take to fix accessibility for a website that you don't even know what sells? You've also assumed some exaggera…

OK, here is a case that we do know something about: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/why-uc-berkel...

Is that frivolous enough for you? That's the same law you're defending here and when that article came out, it was universally decried here on HN. Funny how things change, huh? But I guess it's not ok for someone to sue UC-Berkley for providing free non-accessible lectures, while it's totally ok for a private business to be sued for having a non-accessible website.