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

#591

Post by gabaix » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #579

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a great bill. Anything that lets people hold businesses accountable re:accessibility without opening gaping loopholes for legal shenanigans like that seems like the right balance here.

Sounds like it wouldn't have helped at all. From the article: "Proponents of HR 620 say that changes to the ADA are needed to prevent so-called drive-by lawsuits, where attorneys and people with disabilities use the ADA for their own monetary gain by filing frivolous claims. Yet, as the Democrats noted in their letter, HR 620 will do nothing to stop such cases because 'these private actions seeking damages are filed…

Thanks for pointing this out.

Their first argument is that because state laws exist, there should not be a federal reform. I thought federal laws were there to set a default law for states. If they don't agree with the abuse they should work and reforming the federal law first.

Their second argument is that it 'let businesses get out of becoming fully compliant'. I don't understand. A 120-day heads-up isn't a way to get away with penalties.

And what is missing (and maybe they did say it but it is not mentioned in the article) is what they suggest as an alternative. Surely if you vow to block a reform but agree on the problem they should come up with solutions. There should be a way to both make more businesses compliant and prevent ADA shakedowns.

I am discovering how hard it is to make our laws evolve :)

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

#592

Post by triceratops » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

evunveot wrote: post #575

triceratops wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A blind person who has lost their voice could avail themselves of the text speech service I mentioned Would they know how? They wouldn't normally be accustomed to using those tools, right? A sighted person with laryngitis doesn't need to bother with learning text-to-speech for the 2 weeks they don't have their voice because they can just use the website. If blind users have to learn the tools, that's adding an extr…

> Would they know how? They wouldn't normally be accustomed to using those tools, right? A sighted person with laryngitis doesn't need to bother with learning text-to-speech for the 2 weeks they don't have their voice because they can just use the website. If blind users have to learn the tools, that's adding an extra burden on them. (And yes blind users have to learn how to use screenreaders, which sighted users don…

> Yeah, they got sued because blind people allegedly can't use their website. Language has nothing to do with it.

The person I was originally responding to was arguing that blind people could simply order on the phone and that was an acceptable substitute for the lack of web accessibility. I was pointing out the reasons that it's not as good. Language absolutely is pertinent here.

> That's all true, but I feel like there's a missing "Therefore..." at the end.

Therefore websites should be accessible. Phone ordering isn't a good enough substitute in these other situations and the blind are placed at a disadvantage compared to the sighted.

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

#593

Post by concordDance » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

DoreenMichele wrote: post #427

concordDance wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so impinged upon I greatly doubt it was anything more than mildy irritating and the grandparent never implied otherwise. It's annoying for me to read and I have perfect vision. Being blind doesn't make you immune to an expectation to be accomodating to others.

So the GP volunteers unasked for feedback and that's cool. I do the exact same thing they did and somehow that makes me the asshole? I already covered the fact that tracking problems can be due to reasons other than poor eyesight. I even provided supporting links for that assertion. Part of my background is working for an educational organization that catered to the needs of gifted kids, including twice exceptional k…

> somehow that makes me the asshole?

Um. No?

I don't think anyone implied you were. :S

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

#594

Post by coreyp_1 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 10:00 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #567

coreyp_1 wrote: post #128

Small personal story: My father is an amazing salesman. He used to sell for Schwan's food in the 90's (those big yellow trucks that delivered frozen food to your door every 2 weeks). He had a blind couple (husband and wife) that were on one of his routes, and they bought a little bit of food every time he came by. But they could never read the menu, because Schwan's only had printed brochures. One day, he had me and…

I'm curious as to how they knew what was what when their order came given it's all frozen food in bags/boxes with the instructions printed on the packaging on how to reheat/cook it. That seems like a much larger hurdle than ordering.

As I recall, they had their own system for how they stored food, so that they knew what was what.

Honestly, I don't remember how they took care of the cooking details, but I remember my father telling me that they talked about one of the hardest things that they had to learn to do in the blind school was to be able to cook meat, because they had to go by the sound it made while cooking in order to determine how done it was.

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

#595

Post by coreyp_1 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #553

coreyp_1 wrote: post #128

Small personal story: My father is an amazing salesman. He used to sell for Schwan's food in the 90's (those big yellow trucks that delivered frozen food to your door every 2 weeks). He had a blind couple (husband and wife) that were on one of his routes, and they bought a little bit of food every time he came by. But they could never read the menu, because Schwan's only had printed brochures. One day, he had me and…

Is this argument for government regulation or against? I see ss an argument against, but I’m sure most people disagree.

I actually thought about this very question when I was writing the story.

Truthfully, I don't have an agenda.

I can see, though, how easy it would be for someone to use this story to back up their particular viewpoint, when, in fact, it was just a memory about an experience that I had as a child... A memory that I didn't realize had such a big impact until decades later.

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

#596

Post by archie2 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

Forge36 wrote: post #453

archie2 wrote: post #447

I don't get it. Why can't he just order from someone else that has an accessible website? I choose not to use lousy webapps for all sorts of reasons.

Imagine the website is only partially accessible. You jump though the hoops to make your order, make an account, choose your pizza, and enter your credit card info. You click submit. Nothing happens. Did the order go through? Do you call to find out? Wait and hope? Order from someone else? In the future you'll have an answer (or 4 different deliveries because you went somewhere else 3 separate times until you found a…

> You jump though the hoops to make your order, make an account, choose your pizza, and enter your credit card info. You click submit. Nothing happens. Did the order go through? Do you call to find out? Wait and hope? Order from someone else? In the future you'll have an answer

I've had this happen to me multiple times, and I'm not even disabled.

> What if you didn't have another option? Should we prevent the blind from eating pizza?

We are talking about America - the place where people eat themselves to death from over consumption of terrible foods - there is always another option.

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

#597

Post by gamblor956 » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

zarro wrote: post #510

gamblor956 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US, more than two centuries of jurisprudence holds that commercial activity is not speech, and is thus is not generally subject to the protection of the Constitution. Moreover, the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate Commerce.

Doing business thus is validly subject to government regulations mandating that businesses do (or not do) certain things. And some of those things include not discriminating against the disabled, and designing your business facilities to accommodate the disabled.

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

#598

Post by zarro » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 10:38 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #597

zarro wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US, more than two centuries of jurisprudence holds that commercial activity is not speech, and is thus is not generally subject to the protection of the Constitution. Moreover, the Constitution explicitly gives Congress the power to regulate Commerce. Doing business thus is validly subject to government regulations mandating that businesses do (or not do) certain things. And some of those things include not di…

Given that commercial activity affects my unalienable rights to life, liberty and property I would disagree that its not subject to the protection of the Constitution.

I also find fault with the commerce clause of the constitution and think its broad interpretation as an economic defense mechanism is archaic and filled with undesirable effects (such as the drug war, limitations to trade and international tariff wars), not to mention contradictory to the constitutional principle of liberty.

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

#599

Post by disabled » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

shakna wrote: post #170

rgoldste wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

From another angle here, I occasionally have problems that make me use a screenreader. When the nerves that make my eyes work stop behaving correctly, it's also normal for the nerves in my throat to flip out so that speaking feels like breathing razor blades. Making a call isn't an option, but using a web browser still is, if they haven't gone out of their way to break all the ways a web browser is supposed to behave…

Same. I have severe convergence insufficiency (that is highly variable and cannot be corrected, from a practical standpoint) due to a rare immune-mediated neurological disease.

I taught myself braille and I have a couple of refreshable braille displays, which I use, depending on how well my eyes are working.

I can digitize printed material well, including STEM material, using a program called InftyReader (Windows).

It is no fun, but you have to do what you have to do.

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

#600

Post by disabled » Wed, Oct 09, 2019, 12:36 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #270

rgoldste wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I’m not blind. But I would be furious if I had to call to place an order rather than submit a web form, merely because the site couldn’t be bothered to adhere to basic standards and instead used meth-addled “code artisans” practicing resume-driven development.

Coming from somebody who is disabled: this is what life is like for a disabled person.

There are many, many indignities that we encounter, even nearly constantly due to the way society ignores our needs.

If you go and check out some disabled activists' Twitter accounts, you may be shocked at the anger and the lack of "decency". But, put yourself in their shoes, and realize that they have been forced to deal with systematic and near-constant indignities, and many of them have been forced to fight for their mere existence as human beings.