ADA Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker
Final Numbers in Digital Lawsuits for
October 2024

UsableNet reviewed lawsuits filed in state courts in New York, California, and federal courts to evaluate the legal pressure on businesses. Plaintiffs filed 1,519 lawsuits in state courts (33%) and 3,086 in federal courts (67%). When combining state and federal cases, plaintiffs filed 4,605 lawsuits in 2023. 

In 2023, plaintiff firms filed more than 4,500 ADA-related app and web accessibility lawsuits for an average of 80-100 lawsuits a week. Most lawsuits were filed in New York, California, or Florida with ecommerce websites receiving the bulk of claims.  These instances included lawsuits filed in both federal and state courts (e.g., in California under the Unruh Act).

The industries most impacted by ADA-related lawsuits include:

• Retail and e-commerce
• Restaurants and food service
• Travel and hospitality
• Medical and healthcare
• Banking and financial
• Entertainment and leisure

ADA lawsuits are impacting organizations of all sizes, even small businesses. In 2022, more than a quarter of digital accessibility lawsuits were filed against companies with revenue over $50 million, which means that nearly 75% of lawsuits were filed against those with revenue under $50 million. More plaintiffs are suing smaller businesses, especially since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

Seventy-five percent of all digital ADA lawsuits in 2022 were against e-commerce companies. Almost 20% of the top 500 e-Commerce websites received a lawsuit in 2022. Over the last five years, nearly 80% of the top 500 e-commerce websites received a lawsuit.

An accessibility widget is a tool created to allow website visitors to adjust certain aspects of a website, such as text size and background color. Widgets do not serve as a successful accessibility compliance strategy, as they aim to solve only a small portion of accessibility issues and cannot guarantee WCAG compliance. Businesses that solely rely on accessibility widgets to ensure compliance could be more at risk for ADA lawsuits. Almost 600 lawsuits were filed in 2022 against businesses that used accessibility widgets, and widgets were often cited as a barrier in the lawsuit.

To get started with website accessibility, test your site with UsableNet’s free AQA testing tool. Next, look at the current state of your digital properties. Inventory your website, app, PDFs, and all multimedia. The third step is to complete user testing with people with disabilities. From there, connect with your web team to remediate any accessibility issues. Lastly, you’ll want to create and publish an accessibility statement, along with adding accessibility and ADA compliance to your future web and app contracts.