Avoid Lawsuits By Complying With ADA Legislation

According to ADA, a disability is defined as a “physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” While the Act doesn’t list any specific impairments, it is generally viewed as a document that guarantees equal opportunity for everybody in the majority of situations.

ADA applies to brick-and-mortar and online businesses alike. Hence, a business website is expected to serve its visitors efficiently and equally regardless of visual impairments, motor skill level, and cognitive disabilities.

Website ADA compliance is usually measured against the WCAG guidelines, which have three levels: A for the lowest, AA for medium, and AAA for the highest. And while regulations defining these levels are somewhat ambiguous, it is the responsibility of businesses to make sure that they comply. If a company fails to do so, the consequences can be devastating.

Trending ADA lawsuits

In the United States, there has been more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025 alone. And since the ADA lets a plaintiff who wins recover attorney's fees from the business, filing a case carries little risk for the person suing. Because of that, some high-profile cases have involved large corporations, such as Netflix, Domino’s Pizza, and Amazon.

However, these lawsuits do not target only well-known brands: in 2025, 64% of the companies sued had less than $25 million in annual revenue. A non-complying website can have catastrophic consequences for a mom-and-pop shop.

In 2024 the Department of Justice adopted the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA as the standard for state and local government websites. There is no equivalent rule for private businesses yet, but WCAG AA is what most lawsuits point to. At the moment, WCAG 2.1 is widely used to measure web accessibility, and WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, is the latest version.

Caring for the customer

But it’s not just about the risk of being taken to court. About 16% of the world's population, 1.3 billion people, has a significant disability, and not accommodating this huge group of people closes your doors to a lot of customers. That point may be even more impactful since the pandemic because online shopping has become so much more common. Many disabled people are immune-compromised and are less likely to go back to the traditional in-person shopping experience.

Additionally, many companies claim inclusivity as a core value. The way an inclusive business operates on a daily basis is informed by the awareness that some of the customers may be disabled. Hence, ensuring that the website is ADA-compliant is one of the ways to demonstrate that value in action.

What does ADA compliance involve?

ADA aims to improve accessibility for people with physical and mental disabilities. In practicality, that usually involves improving UI so that anybody can meaningfully browse your website. That often means changing the contrast between colors, making page fonts larger, and accommodating a limited use of a mouse or a keyboard. Additionally, it requires providing adequate alt text for images so that someone utilizing a screen reader can successfully navigate the website and complete a transaction without being able to see the product photo. Another example is the use of flashing images and animation across pages. They can negatively impact the browsing experience; it is advised that that feature can be turned off and on upon request.

While these requirements are absolutely reasonable requests to make the website easy to use for everybody, they may seem like a tall order for an owner of a busy company. Creating a website has become a relatively simple task, and many small businesses forego professional website development. Instead, they use a popular CMS such as Shopify to make their site themselves. This may be a fine choice at an early stage of business development since it’s a cheap and fast solution. However, in the long term, it leaves your business vulnerable to ADA-related lawsuits if the person who creates the website has a lack of experience in the web development field.

Making an existing website ADA-compliant

Let’s say we have a working website that brings in traffic and sales, but it’s not ADA-compliant. What’s the best and quickest way to tackle this issue?

You can approach it from several directions. You can consult a lawyer specializing in ADA and try to adjust things accordingly. If that sounds too complex, you can order a custom redesign from a professional web development studio. Web studios do not provide legal consultations, but they make it easy to outsource the challenging task of complying with ADA in accordance with the current guidelines and standards. The downside of both of these approaches is that you’ll still have to keep up with the ADA legislation since it is prone to change with time.

Be careful with accessibility widgets, also called overlays, that promise to make a website compliant automatically. In 2025 the FTC ordered accessiBe, the maker of accessWidget, to pay $1 million over claims that its AI tool could make websites WCAG compliant, and businesses with widgets installed have continued to be sued.

Another great benefit is that you might be eligible to take advantage of the Disabled Access Credit that provides up to a $5,000 tax credit for eligible accessibility expenses if your business has 30 or fewer employees or $1 million or less in revenue. Ask your accountant whether your website work qualifies.

If you need help, Abra can help review your website and fix the accessibility issues in its design and code.

Related reading

• Is my website ADA compliant?
• Website accessibility lawsuits in California