The Southern District of New York is quickly becoming a less favorable venue for serial plaintiffs bringing website accessibility lawsuits. This week, Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed an ADA website claim against an online coffee retailer—holding that "a stand-alone website is not a place of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA." See Mejia v. High Brew Coffee Inc., No. 1:22cv3667, 2024 WL 4350912 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2024).
Title III of the ADA requires private sector businesses that serve as "places of accommodations" to remove "access barriers" that hinder a disabled person's access to their goods and services. In the past several years, thousands of lawsuits have been filed by blind or visually impaired plaintiffs on the theory that: (1) commercial websites qualify as places of public accommodation; and (2) websites with access barriers (e.g., those that are not compatible with screen-reading software that vocalizes visual information on a computer screen) deny plaintiffs' right of equal access in violation of the ADA and corresponding state law.
Many companies have moved to dismiss these website accessibility claims—with varying degrees of success—on the ground that standalone websites without a connection to "brick and mortar" locations are not "places of public accommodation" and need not comply with Title III of the ADA. Indeed, this is the law in the Third, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits.
Because the Second Circuit has not yet squarely addressed this question, the SDNY has been a favored venue for serial plaintiffs bringing accessibility lawsuits. However, Judge Swain's decision in High Brew Coffee may begin to stem that tide—at least with respect to internet-only businesses.
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