Tagged: Accessible

“Winn’s of Change?” The Eleventh Circuit in Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. Holds That Websites Are Not Places of Public Accommodation Under the ADA

The landscape of ADA website accessibility claims, which have inundated courts throughout the country for years, may be changing with the issuance, on April 7, 2021, of a long-awaited decision by the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. In a decision that marks only the second time a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has addressed the parameters of website accessibility claims based on the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), a majority of the panel held that websites are not “places of public accomodation” under Title III of the ADA and thus, the plaintiff’s inability to access certain services provided by Winn-Dixie’s website is not a violation of Title III. While this decision runs counter to many District Court decisions, as well as the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, 913 F.3d 898 (9th Cir. 2019), the Eleventh Circuit was clear – absent congressional action, the court cannot broaden the definition of “places of public accommodation” beyond the physical places of business enumerated in Title III. Thus, the court reversed the district court, which had found, following the only full trial to occur in these matters, that Winn-Dixie violated the ADA by offering a website that fails to meet the accessibility standards that have been accepted...

Trial Court Says New York’s “Requester Pays” Rule Applies Only to Data That Is Not Readily Available

As discussed in a recent post, there exists a dichotomy between the New York state and federal courts with respect to which party should bear the cost of producing inaccessible data. A recent New York Supreme (Trial) Court decision held that New York’s standard “requester pays” rule only applies to data that is not “readily available.” Silverman v. Shaoul, 2010 N.Y. Slip Op. 20507, 2010 N.Y. Misc. (Sup. Ct. New York Cty. Nov. 3, 2010).