{"id":2277,"date":"2021-06-07T13:48:21","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T13:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/preprod.realtrends.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/07\/websites-accessibility-lawsuit-ruling-sites-are-not-public-accommodations\/"},"modified":"2025-03-13T02:37:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T02:37:47","slug":"websites-accessibility-lawsuit-ruling-sites-are-not-public-accommodations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preprod.realtrends.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/07\/websites-accessibility-lawsuit-ruling-sites-are-not-public-accommodations\/","title":{"rendered":"Website accessibility Winn-Dixie lawsuit ruled its site not a place of public accommodation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>The decision is good news for companies facing federal website accessibility lawsuits <\/em><em>within the Eleventh Circuit\u2019s jurisdiction of Florida, Alabama and Georgia.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a decision potentially affecting any company with a customer-facing website, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jdsupra.com\/legalnews\/eleventh-circuit-court-of-appeals-5659404\/#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20a%20Southern%20District,accommodation%20covered%20by%20the%20ADA.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled <\/a>on April 7 that grocery retailer Winn-Dixie\u2019s website was not a \u201cplace of public accommodation\u201d under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and that a website must serve as an \u201cintangible barrier\u201d to the access of physical places before a company can be held liable under the Act.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The decision in<em> Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.<\/em> widens the split among federal courts of appeal in their treatment of ADA claims, and may tee up a U.S. Supreme Court review of the issue of website accessibility to disabled individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-americans-with-disabilities-act-ada\">The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Title III of the ADA prohibits discrimination against disabled individuals by private entities and requires that \u201cplaces of public accommodation\u201d be accessible to anyone with a disability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ADA was adopted in 1990 and did not specifically address how its provisions applied to <a href=\"http:\/\/usability.gov\/what-and-why\/accessibility.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">websites<\/a>. But, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which is responsible for administering the law, has interpreted Title III since 1996 to require that websites be made accessible to individuals with disabilities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To date, the DOJ has not issued a uniform technical standard for accessibility. In the absence of official guidance, web accessibility litigation has increased in recent years. According to the law firm of Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal courts jumped 177% in 2018 before leveling off in 2019 and 2020. California, New York, Florida, Texas and Georgia had the most lawsuits in 2020, with Illinois, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Jersey and Massachusetts rounding out the top ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-facts-of-winn-dixie\">The Facts of Winn-Dixie<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The visually-impaired plaintiff sued Winn-Dixie for allegedly violating Title III of the ADA by making its website inaccessible to the screen reader software he had purchased to access the internet. Even though customers could not purchase anything on Winn-Dixie\u2019s website, they could locate stores, download digital coupons for in-store purchases, and refill their prescriptions for pick-up in the stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The district court said that it did not need to decide whether Winn-Dixie\u2019s website was a \u201cplace of public accommodation\u201d under the ADA because it was \u201cheavily integrated\u201d with the physical grocery stores and operated \u201cas a gateway to the physical store locations.\u201d Therefore, it found that the <a href=\"https:\/\/preprod.realtrends.com\/blog\/preventing-hacks-from-breaking-your-website-this-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">website<\/a> violated Title III of the ADA by denying the plaintiff the full enjoyment of Winn-Dixie\u2019s goods and services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-eleventh-circuit-decision\">The Eleventh Circuit Decision<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the trial court.&nbsp; Relying on the \u201cunambiguous and clear\u201d language of Title III of the ADA, it ruled that \u201cpublic accommodations\u201d are limited to \u201cactual, physical places\u201d which do not include websites or any \u201cintangible places or spaces.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court noted a 3-2 split among federal courts of appeals on the issue of website accessibility under Title III, but decided to join the majority of courts that have ruled that websites are not a place of public accommodation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court also addressed whether Winn-Dixie\u2019s website created an \u201cintangible barrier\u201d to the plaintiff\u2019s ability to access and enjoy fully and equally \u2018the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations\u201d of its physical stores, since Title III requires places of public accommodations (in this case, the Winn-Dixie physical stores) to take steps to ensure that no disabled individual is treated differently in accessing its auxiliary aids and services. It concluded that there is no \u201cintangible barrier\u201d in this case, because the website had only limited functionality and was not itself a point of sale. Therefore, nothing prevented the plaintiff from shopping at the physical store, including using the pharmacy and redeeming coupons.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the Eleventh Circuit rejected the Ninth Circuit\u2019s 2019 ruling in <em>Robles v. Domino\u2019s Pizza<\/em> that an inaccessible website merely has to have a \u201cnexus\u201d to a physical location to establish liability under the ADA, finding no basis for it in the statute and noting that the Winn-Dixie website did not allow customers to purchase products or services online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-takeaways\">Takeaways<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>Winn-Dixie<\/em> decision is good news for companies facing federal website accessibility lawsuits within the Eleventh Circuit\u2019s jurisdiction of Florida, Alabama and Georgia, and generally provides companies facing accusations of violating disability-discrimination laws a helpful legal precedent. However, its benefits have limitations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, there remains a split among federal courts of appeal over whether ADA is limited to physical locations, and among state courts under state disability discrimination laws. Because the Winn-Dixie decision has broadened the split, there is an increased hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the issue of website accessibility under the ADA in the future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second, the Eleventh Circuit emphasized the limited functionality of the Winn-Dixie website in reaching its decision \u2014 so, even a court within the jurisdiction of that Circuit could reach a different conclusion if a defendant company with physical locations also sells products and services on its website.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until the Supreme Court resolves the federal court split \u2014 or until Congress amends the ADA \u2014 website accessibility lawsuits will continue to be filed. Therefore, companies should continue to regularly evaluate their websites to address any deficiencies in navigation for disabled individuals.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sue Johnson is the former executive director of RESPRO, the Real Estate Services Providers Council Inc. She retired in 2015 and is now a strategic alliance consultant. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New ruling on website accessibility says that websites are no a place of public accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15802,"featured_media":4822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3255],"tags":[],"coauthors":[58],"class_list":["post-2277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v26.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Website accessibility Winn-Dixie lawsuit ruled its site not a place of public accommodation - RealTrends - Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"New ruling on website accessibility says that websites are no a place of public accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/preprod.realtrends.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/07\/websites-accessibility-lawsuit-ruling-sites-are-not-public-accommodations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Website accessibility Winn-Dixie lawsuit ruled its site not a place of public accommodation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New ruling on website accessibility says that websites are no a place of public accommodation under the Americans With Disabilities Act.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/preprod.realtrends.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/07\/websites-accessibility-lawsuit-ruling-sites-are-not-public-accommodations\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"RealTrends - 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