Landmark website accessibility cases, and what they teach
Target's $6M settlement, Domino's at the Supreme Court, Winn-Dixie's trial and Netflix's captions.
Risk · Updated October 2026
ADA website lawsuits and penalties
Website accessibility lawsuits rose 27% in 2025. Here is what the numbers show, what non-compliance actually costs, and the real cases that shaped the law.
The numbers
| Year | Federal website accessibility lawsuits | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2,794 | |
| 2024 | 2,452 | −12% |
| 2025 | 3,117 | +27% |
Source: Seyfarth Shaw LLP’s annual count of federal ADA Title III website accessibility filings. Excludes state-court lawsuits and pre-suit demand letters.
In 2025, website cases made up 36% of all ADA Title III federal lawsuits, up from 28% the year before. The busiest courts were in New York (1,021 cases), Florida (961, nearly double its 2024 total) and Illinois (585). California recorded only four federal filings — not because California is safer, but because plaintiffs there sue in state court under the Unruh Act, which pays statutory damages.
What non-compliance can cost
| Source of liability | What can be recovered |
|---|---|
| ADA Title III, private lawsuit | Court order to fix the site, plus the plaintiff's attorneys' fees and costs |
| ADA Title III, DOJ enforcement | Civil penalties up to $118,225 (first violation) and $236,451 (subsequent), plus damages to affected people |
| California Unruh Act | At least $4,000 per violation, plus attorneys' fees |
| New York State & City human rights laws | Compensatory damages; civil penalties and punitive damages in some cases |
| Colorado HB21-1110 (public entities) | $3,500 per violation, plus injunctive relief |
| ADA Title II / Section 504 | DOJ or HHS investigation, multi-year settlement agreements, loss of federal funding in extreme cases, private suits |
| European Accessibility Act | Fines set by each EU country; products can be withdrawn from the market |
| FTC Act (false accessibility claims) | Orders and payments — $1 million in the 2025 accessiBe case |
And then there are the costs nobody puts in a press release: your own lawyers, emergency remediation on a court deadline, executive time, and customers who quietly went to a competitor.
Why the same companies get sued again
A settlement with one plaintiff doesn’t protect you from the next one. Plaintiffs’ firms use the same screen-reader testing to find barriers, and a site that was “fixed” with an overlay or a quick patch usually still has them. Settlement terms that require remediation by a certain date are also enforceable — missing them can put you back in court.
What plaintiffs find
Complaints describe the same barriers again and again:
- product images and links without text alternatives,
- “Add to cart”, “Checkout” or “Book now” controls that can’t be reached or activated with a keyboard,
- forms with unlabeled fields and errors that aren’t announced,
- pop-ups and cookie banners that trap keyboard focus,
- menus, price lists and forms published as inaccessible PDFs.
Every one of these is preventable. Start with our website accessibility checklist, or ask us for an audit.
Cases and practical guides
Higher education accessibility cases: what went wrong, and what it cost
UC Berkeley's 20,000 deleted videos, Harvard and MIT captioning, and course materials that excluded students.
Received an ADA website demand letter? Here's what to do
A calm, step-by-step plan for the first 30 days after a demand letter or complaint arrives.
Frequently asked questions
How many website accessibility lawsuits are filed each year?
Seyfarth Shaw counted 3,117 federal ADA Title III website accessibility lawsuits in 2025, up from 2,452 in 2024 and 2,794 in 2023. That count excludes state-court cases and demand letters that settle before a lawsuit, so the real number of claims is considerably higher.
How much does it cost to settle an ADA website lawsuit?
Settlement amounts are usually confidential. Individual cases are commonly reported to settle in the five figures, before you add your own legal fees and the cost of fixing the website — which you’ll have to pay for anyway. Contested cases and class actions cost far more: Target’s 2008 class settlement was $6 million plus about $3.7 million in plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees.
If I settle, can I be sued again?
Yes. A private settlement binds only the plaintiff who sued. If your website still has barriers, another plaintiff can file a new claim. The only durable protection is actually fixing the website and keeping it accessible.
Find out where you stand, in writing.
Send us a few URLs or sample PDFs. Within two business days you get a free, plain-English snapshot of your biggest accessibility risks and what it takes to fix them.