Does a public website constitute a place of public accommodation? This is a question that courts are encountering more frequently as the subject of litigation involving the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
In today’s world, many businesses rely on e-commerce as much as their brick and mortar operations. While traditional risks involving ADA litigation involved the removal of barriers to ensure physical access to places of public accommodation for those with disabilities, companies now need to consider whether similar barriers exist on their websites and other electronic technology. This could involve any disability that could potentially prevent access to the web, including visual, speech or cognitive disabilities, among others.
The Department of Justice has been particularly aggressive in pursuing actions against private employers who maintain public websites. In addition to remediation, such violations could subject a business to compensatory or even punitive damages. A successful plaintiff may even be awarded his or her attorneys’ fees.
Join the RCM&D team and Philip R. Voluck, Managing Partner of Kaufman, Dolowich & Voluck, for a webinar to learn about website accessibility, current litigation and how to ensure your website is ADA compliant. The webinar will be held on Tuesday, June 6, 2017 from 2 – 3 p.m. We hope you can join us, register today.