In recent years, there have been more Federal ADA website compliance lawsuits. If a website is non-compliant, a website owner may be subject to one of these ADA lawsuits. Also see, Is Your Website ADA Compliant? by clicking here.
Potential Liabilities of Non-compliance
If a website is non ADA complaint, the website owner may be liable for:
- Opposing parties’ attorney’s fees.
- Development costs of making the website ADA compliant.
Potential Situations
A website owner may find themselves in many situations. An attorney representing a person with a disability may: (1) reach out for alternative dispute resolutions to settle the ADA compliance before a complaint is filed; or (2) file a lawsuit against the website owner.
In both situations, the website owner may end up needing to do the following:
- Spending money making their website in compliance. There are many third-party services that may provide reviews, assist in fixing the compliance issues, and providing monthly audits.
- As part of the settlement, the website owner may also need to get approval from the opposing counsel or party in the process of making the website in compliance.
- Pay for the costs of the attorney’s work. If the case is not settled early, the attorney’s fees may grow a lot. Plenty of times, the attorney may file many similar lawsuits so, if the claim is settled early on, the attorney’s fees may be negotiated downwards because not a lot of work was done yet.
Possible remediation
There is a large range of actions a website owner may need to do for remediation. These include:
- Retaining a qualified consultant to assist in compliance with WCAG.
- Training employees and agents who develop the website on WCAG.
- Institute corporate policies that cause the website to become and remain accessible, including regularly check the accessibility of the website under WCAG.
- Regularly audit and test the website in compliance of WCAG.
- Develop an accessibility policy that is clearly disclosed on the website, with contact information for the users to report accessibility related problems.