ADA Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker
Final Numbers in Web Accessibility Lawsuits for
July 2026

UsableNet reviewed lawsuits filed in state courts in New York, California, and federal courts to evaluate the legal pressure on businesses. By the end of 2025, plaintiffs filed 4,928 web accessibility lawsuits. 

Since 2021, plaintiffs have filed more than 4,000 lawsuits each year for digital accessibility. From 2018 to 2025, plaintiffs have filed more than 25,000 lawsuits with digital accessibility complaints. 

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

Web accessibility lawsuits are impacting organizations of all sizes, even small businesses. Lawsuits against large companies are steadily increasing. In the first half of 2025, 36% of sued companies had annual revenue exceeding $25 million, up from 33% in 2024. This shift suggests that plaintiffs are focusing on companies with more resources to settle lawsuits. Smaller companies are still targeted but account for a smaller share of lawsuits than in past years.

There is no standard settlement amount for an ADA website lawsuit. The terms are usually confidential, so there is limited public information about what companies pay or agree to do.

One important factor is the strength of the claim. Legal counsel will typically assess whether the alleged accessibility barriers exist, whether they prevent people with disabilities from using the website, and whether the company has already corrected them.

The company’s accessibility efforts can also affect its position. Documented improvements and an ongoing program for maintaining accessibility may provide grounds to challenge the allegations, argue that the issues have been resolved, or negotiate more favorable terms.

The cost of litigation also influences settlement discussions. Because defending a lawsuit can require significant time and legal expense, a company may decide that resolving the claim and directing resources toward accessibility is more practical than continuing to litigate.

The applicable law and jurisdiction may matter as well because the remedies available under federal and state laws differ. Ultimately, the outcome depends on the specific allegations, the condition of the website, the company’s response, and the negotiations between the parties.

California has historically been an attractive jurisdiction for website accessibility lawsuits because state law may allow plaintiffs to recover monetary damages in addition to the remedies available under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

The federal ADA generally allows private plaintiffs to seek accessibility improvements and attorneys’ fees, but not monetary damages. California law may provide statutory damages in qualifying cases, creating an additional incentive to file there.

However, California courts have limited some claims by ruling that a website generally must have a connection to a physical place of business. California continues to see a significant number of website accessibility lawsuits, but filings have declined from their earlier levels.

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.

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.