An ADA website lawsuit letter claims your website is a place of public accommodation under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and that a visitor using a screen reader could not use it. It lists findings such as images without descriptions and unlabeled form fields, and cites the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG, at Level AA. Federal Title III carries no money damages; New York and California state laws add them.
What Title III says and how courts apply it to websites
Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods and services of any place of public accommodation. The statute lists twelve categories of places, from hotels to bakeries to the offices of an accountant or lawyer. It was written in 1990 and does not mention websites; ADA.gov hosts the statute and the Title III regulations.
Courts split on whether a website is one of those places. Some circuits hold that a website is covered only when it has a nexus to a physical location, so an online-only store may fall outside the statute. Other courts, including many district courts in New York, treat a website as a place of public accommodation on its own. The court you are sued in decides which reading applies, and plaintiff firms know the map.
No federal regulation sets a technical standard for private business websites. In April 2024 the Department of Justice published a rule under Title II that requires state and local government websites and apps to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, with compliance dates of April 26, 2027 or April 26, 2028 depending on population, after an April 2026 rule extended the original dates; ADA.gov summarizes the rule. The DOJ has not issued a matching Title III rule.
Complaints fill that gap by citing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG, published by the W3C, as the measure of whether a site is usable. Depending on the firm, the complaints Suitcast has read cite version 2.0, 2.1 or 2.2 at Level AA. Courts and settlement agreements have used the same benchmark for years, and the findings section of a complaint usually lists the WCAG success criterion next to each item.
Remedies matter. A private plaintiff under Title III can obtain an injunction ordering the site fixed, plus attorney's fees, but not money damages. That is why the letter asks you to settle for a fee and a remediation agreement, and why the state law claims added to the complaint change the arithmetic, which a later section covers.
Who files these letters
A small number of repeat plaintiffs and firms. Suitcast counts 869 verified website accessibility filings in the 12 months to September 16, 2026, on its dataset page, from CourtListener's federal court records and sourced state filings. Many plaintiffs appear on more than one case; each state page lists the plaintiffs with three or more filings in the last 12 months.
The firms concentrate further. In the same window, Equal Access Law Group is named on 268 federal website accessibility dockets, Gottlieb & Associates on 150, Joseph & Norinsberg on 66, Nye, Stirling, Hale, Miller & Sweet on 50 and Horowitz Law on 31, per the firms page. Five firms, 565 dockets between them.
The activity moves. Equal Access Law Group, the largest filer over the year, has filed no website case since June 3, 2026, which the data page notes as the reason Illinois filings fall after June, while Gottlieb & Associates filed 56 of its cases in the last 90 days. That is why the Illinois page and the New York page read very differently from a state where a handful of cases were filed all year.
Serial plaintiffs are individuals who file many suits, often against businesses in the same industry in the same month. Names repeat across dockets and the complaints are near-identical templates with the business name and the findings swapped in. That is not a comment on the plaintiff; the barriers are often real. It means the complaint you received was not written for you, and its findings are the kind an automated check produces.
The state pages show what this looks like locally: New York, California and Florida each list the last 12 months of filings, the firms behind them and the industries hit, updated daily. If your letter's firm is on the firms page, you can read a dozen of its complaints before you call anyone.
What the complaint cites
The findings section of a website accessibility complaint often reads like the output of an automated checker. Six items recur across complaints. In the plain titles Suitcast uses for the axe-core rules behind them:
- Images have no description (image-alt). A screen reader says "image" and nothing else. Complaints call this missing alternative text, and it is among the failures the firm pages list most often.
- Form fields have no label (label). The visitor hears "edit text" without knowing what to type. Complaints describe unlabeled input fields or form controls.
- Links have no text (link-name). Usually an icon or a logo with nothing behind it. Complaints call these empty links or say the link purpose is unclear.
- Buttons have no text (button-name). Icon-only menu, cart and close buttons. Complaints describe empty buttons.
- Text is hard to read against its background (color-contrast). Complaints cite insufficient contrast or the contrast ratio.
- The page does not say what language it is in (html-has-lang). A one-line theme setting that complaints describe as the language of the page not being identified.
Beyond those six, complaints add items such as no way to skip past the menu, embedded frames with no title, and headings that skip levels. Some complaints name the WCAG success criterion behind each finding, although axe-core treats heading order as a best practice rather than a WCAG requirement.
Two things to understand about this list. Automated tools detect only a part of what WCAG covers; the rest requires a person using a screen reader or a keyboard. And the same finding on a template repeats on every page, so a complaint that says hundreds of images lack alt text may be describing one product grid.
The free Suitcast scan runs these rules, the automated WCAG A and AA ones and the best-practice ones such as heading order, against your public pages and reports each finding under the plain title above, with the owner-level fix and where the setting lives. The methodology page lists the rules and how the score is built.
The first steps
Preserve. Take dated full-page captures of the pages the complaint names and of the home page, checkout and contact form. Run a scan and save the report. You want a record of the site as it was on the day the letter arrived, because the fixes you make next will change it.
Scan. Run the site through an automated checker and get the list of findings with counts per page. Compare it to the complaint. Findings the complaint lists that your scan does not show, and the reverse, are both useful to your lawyer.
Fix the cited items using the plain fixes. Alt text is added in the page editor: the Shopify theme editor image block, the WordPress media library alt field, Squarespace image settings. Labels come from the form builder; placeholder text alone is not a label. Icon buttons and links get a text label or an aria-label from your developer. Contrast is a theme color setting. The page language is a site setting under Shopify Languages, WordPress General settings or Squarespace Language & Region. Fix the template once and every page inherits it.
Publish an accessibility statement. A short page that names the standard you work toward, WCAG 2.1 AA, a contact for reporting barriers, and the date of your last review. It does not stop a filing. It shows a process.
Talk to a lawyer. One who has handled website accessibility matters in the court named in the letter, since the circuit split above changes the defenses. Ask about the state law claims in particular, because those carry the damages.
Know what the money is. Federal Title III has no damages. State laws can add money that federal law does not: New York's State and City Human Rights Laws allow damages, and California's Unruh Civil Rights Act sets at least $4,000 per violation. That is one reason demands tied to those states are higher.
Overlay widget, fixing the pages, or a full audit
The decision owners face by day two, usually after a vendor email offering a one-line script that promises to handle everything.
| Approach | What it changes | What it does not change | Honest cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overlay widget | Adds a toolbar that alters presentation: contrast, font size, some generated alt text | The page code; missing labels and empty buttons remain in the source that a screen reader and a scanner read | Low monthly fee; the FTC's order against one overlay maker is described below |
| Fixing the pages | The template and content: alt text, labels, button names, contrast, language | Items automated tools cannot detect, such as reading order or whether alt text is meaningful | A developer day on most small sites, plus content work on images |
| Full audit | Everything above plus manual testing with a screen reader and keyboard, and a report against every WCAG 2.1 AA criterion | Nothing about future content unless you keep testing | Highest; the right choice for sites with checkout, booking or patient portals |
On overlays specifically: in January 2025 the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed order requiring accessiBe to pay $1 million over claims that its automated product could make websites conform to accessibility guidelines, and it approved the order as final on April 22, 2025; the FTC's January release describes the allegations. I do not print numbers about overlay lawsuits I cannot source, and I do not need to: the complaint cites findings in the page code, and an overlay leaves the page code alone. The accessibility widgets guide covers the FTC order and the Justice Department guidance in full.
Fixing the pages is the middle path most small businesses take, and it addresses everything an automated complaint cites. A full audit is where the fixes go next once the letter is handled, especially for sites where a visitor completes a transaction.
Why New York and California, and what damages change
Federal Title III's remedies are an injunction and attorney's fees. That is enough to sustain the practice, since the fee is paid by the defendant, but it is not what drives the number in the demand.
New York's State Human Rights Law and New York City Human Rights Law allow damages for discrimination in public accommodations, and complaints filed in the Southern District of New York attach them as pendent claims. California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, Civil Code section 52, sets a minimum of $4,000 in statutory damages per violation, and under Civil Code section 51(f) an ADA violation is also an Unruh violation. Plaintiffs multiply that figure across visits, which is the arithmetic behind a California demand.
The data reflects it. New York-based Gottlieb & Associates and Joseph & Norinsberg are among the busiest accessibility filers, and the New York page names Gottlieb & Associates as the most active firm there. California's count is lower than New York's, and many California accessibility claims are filed in state court under Unruh, which Suitcast covers only partially through curated sources, as the data page explains.
For an owner outside those states, the exposure is different in kind: an injunction and fees, not damages. That does not make the letter ignorable, but it changes what a fair settlement looks like, and a lawyer who has handled these matters will price it accordingly. It also means the same fix list applies everywhere; the findings do not change with the state, only the price of them.
Limitations
The counts are a floor. Suitcast's numbers come from CourtListener's federal court records plus curated state filings with a public source, and state court coverage is partial. New York state court and California state court accessibility cases are undercounted, and the firm numbers above are federal dockets. All counts are as of September 16, 2026, and the live pages update daily.
A case counts only once it is verified as a website case, by its plaintiff firm, its plaintiff or its complaint text, so a website case whose docket lacks web terms waits in review and is not yet counted, and physical-access suits are left out. The methodology page documents the rules, and the data page shows the coverage note next to every count.
Automated testing catches only a portion of WCAG. A clean automated scan does not mean a screen reader user can complete your checkout, and a scan does not determine whether any site meets any standard. The scan shows what a complaint would cite; it does not stop anyone from filing. The not legal advice page says this in full, and the scanner policy describes what the scan loads.
The circuit split summary above is a summary. Decisions arrive monthly, and the DOJ's position on private websites could change with a new rule. Ask your lawyer about the current state in your circuit before relying on any general statement.
The companion guides cover CIPA demand letters about tracking scripts, the other letter type owners receive, and which tracking scripts appear most in website privacy lawsuits. The pricing page covers weekly re-scans for owners who want a dated record that the fixes held.
Suitcast identifies risk indicators. It is not legal advice and does not determine compliance.
Last updated September 16, 2026.