The Topic of This Accessibility Lawsuit
The Plaintiff in this case was Guillermo Robles. Robles was unable to place on order on the pizza chain’s mobile app using his screenreader software. The lawsuit alleged that this incompatibility impeded access to the franchises goods and services. Like in other web accessibility lawsuits, the plaintiff alleged that this was a violation of the ADA.
Dominos argued that the lack of accessibility did not impede consumer’s ability to enjoy their services. They argued that even though Robles could not place his order using the mobile application, he would still have been able to do so by utilizing other available services, such as their phone line, a text message, social media, or using services offered through Amazon Echo or Google Home.
Dominos also brought up the lack of an official web accessibility standard. The ADA does not currently have an official standard in place for web accessibility. There are guidelines that business can refer to when making accessibility considerations for their web applications. Ultimately, however, it falls to the discretion of the ADA to decide what is and is not compliant.
The Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court denied Dominos’ petition, therefore upholding the results of the lawsuit that favored Robles. This is a huge win for web accessibility. Cases have been trending toward favoring web accessibility and this Supreme Court verdict will surely bring momentum to that trend.
Moving forward, the results of these lawsuits have proven that web accessibility is no longer something that businesses can afford to ignore. Fortunately, the field of accessibility consulting is growing quickly. Businesses looking to improve their web accessibility or build accessible web applications will have plenty of resources to choose from.