Rob Thorpe, partner, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article “The Law Firm Hitting Businesses With Thousands of Disability Suits.” The article concentrates on one law firm, Mizrahi Kroub, which has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits in the last year alone on behalf of plaintiffs who claim that defendants’ websites are inaccessible to visually impaired customers. Many of these plaintiffs are known as “serial plaintiffs,” suing multiple businesses across different industries for the same reason.
The article highlights that these cases are so prolific because private parties, not the government, are responsible for ensuring businesses comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Despite the fact that many cases settle, problems often go unfixed.
While the ADA provides requirements for how wide a doorway needs to be to accommodate a wheelchair, it only provides requirements for how to make a state and local government websites accessible. Meanwhile, private companies are left to decide for themselves how they’d like to comply. Rob said, “Part of the problem we keep raising is that there’s no standard governing [website] accessibility under the ADA [for private businesses]. It’s created this niche market for these types of cases.”
Even when a defendant wins, it’s not without cost. Many spend tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and several thousand dollars more on website consultants and updates.
Wall Street Journal subscribers can read the full article here.