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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

#501

Post by gamblor956 »

zarro wrote: post #478

The ADA law actually doesn't make sense to me. I get they are trying to stop discrimination, but the means they take is misguided and an encroachment on peoples rights. If you have a business and are offering a service, you are doing so at-will. Your not obligated to provide anyone with any product or service, if you were, how is that not slavery? The law forces you to provide a product or service without allowing yo…

That is literally the opposite of the truth. If you have a business in the US, you have a duty not to discriminate against protected classes that trumps free speech rights.

Under the ADA, only new businesses (post ADA) are/were required to build accessibility into their business. Older businesses were grandfathered in and didn't have to make changes to existing facilities until they renovated them. In terms of websites, this means only the oldest websites would have been grandfathered in.

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

#502

Post by tekkk »

Tyr42 wrote: post #484
tekkk wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, thank you for your insight into the life of blind users. I have often wondered if my sites that I've been part of building have been accessible but without proper guidance or customer requirements, nobody has really cared that much to check out. Lately I have been part of building a quite popular website in my native country, and this time, as I have had more autonomy than before, decided to go ahead and add as…

Not GP, but dev learning a11y too. I'm just going though a web course on this which is pretty good. https://www.udacity.com/course/web-accessibility--ud891 I think moving focus into the modal is pretty helpful Here's the video on focus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoAsayPVogE&t=65 You can set tabindex="-1" on the header of the dialog, and move focus to that. (Also set outline: none on the dialog, but not anything…

Thanks, a lot appreciated!

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

#503

Post by stronglikedan »

kls wrote: post #149

So somehow along my career I fell into accessibility dev for a while. Funny enough it was one of the most lucrative dev jobs I did and there was always plenty of work. It is easily outsourced to a remote developer because all you really need is a browser and a screen reader. In my opinion there really is no reason for even mom and pop sites to not provide even a base level of accessibility, it really is just setting…

> there really is no reason for even mom and pop sites to not provide even a base level of accessibility

Because it costs money to do so, and sometimes mom and pop sites are barely scraping by to begin with. It's also their prerogative to make the content accessible or inaccessible to whomever they see fit - it's their loss if someone cannot buy their product, but it's also their choice to accept that loss. I think it sets a dangerous precedent to make them legally obliged to make their content available in a specific way.

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

#504

Post by bluGill »

gnicholas wrote: post #154
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…

> Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. A unanimous denial of certiorari (declining to hear the case) sends a pretty strong message to lawyers and their clients. It only takes 4 votes (1 less than majority) to hear a case, so the fact that there were zero justices interested is a clear message. While it is technically possible that there could in the future b…

No, the supreme court prefers to have lots of lower courts weigh in before deciding anything if at all possible. That way there are lots of well reasoned smart people who have thought about the problem and so by considering all different thoughts they are more likely to get it right. They are well aware that they are the last resort and so what they say goes even if it is wrong so they avoid being wrong.

Which is to say, even if the entire court (both liberals and conservatives) thought the lower court decided wrong they probably wouldn't want to hear this case until a couple other lower courts also wrote something - just in case some argument that someone comes up over the next few years points out an angle they hadn't thought of and so they would reverse.

That is a preference though. They can of course do what they want.

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

#505

Post by ping_pong »

This law is ripe for exploitative lawsuits. Instead of damages going to the plaintiff, of which actual damages are very dubious, it should go to a fund that helps web site developers increase accessibility. Maybe an open source foundation that integrates this into regular HTML.

The money should NOT go to lawyers for their fees and plaintiffs. It just creates the wrong incentive system.

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

#507

Post by TerminalJunkie »

Honest question from a web developer, and I'm ashamed I don't know more, is there a clear concise guide to building accessible websites? I've had to support ARIA for U.S. Government websites, and certain color schemes for color accessibility, but I really don't feel like I know how to build a web product with accessibility in mind. I am genuinely sorry that I haven't developed the skill more, and would like to take this opportunity to learn more.

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

#509

Post by gabaix »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #463
gabaix wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According the restaurant owner the lawyer was suing hundreds of small restaurants in the Bay Area. Also they didn't seem to care about the restaurant at all, and were only interested in finding out all violations.

There was a bipartisan bill that passed the House 2 years ago (https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/620/...) that aimed at closing drive-by ADA shakedowns. The bill required claimants to give 120 days to business to fix issue. It seems the bill hasn't been signed by the Senate (not sure why, if anyone knows more let me know). This is a good bill, hopefully it will pass.

edit: Found why it didn't pass the Senate. Democrats in Senate promised to filibuster any attempt to bring the bill to the floor. https://rewire.news/article/2018/04/03/sen-tammy-duckworth-s....

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

#510

Post by zarro »

gamblor956 wrote: post #501
zarro wrote: post #478

The ADA law actually doesn't make sense to me. I get they are trying to stop discrimination, but the means they take is misguided and an encroachment on peoples rights. If you have a business and are offering a service, you are doing so at-will. Your not obligated to provide anyone with any product or service, if you were, how is that not slavery? The law forces you to provide a product or service without allowing yo…

That is literally the opposite of the truth. If you have a business in the US, you have a duty not to discriminate against protected classes that trumps free speech rights. Under the ADA, only new businesses (post ADA) are/were required to build accessibility into their business. Older businesses were grandfathered in and didn't have to make changes to existing facilities until they renovated them. In terms of websit…

I don't see how its acceptable to use coercion to enforce an opinion of "duties that trump free speech rights" that don't involve force, fraud, or defamation.
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