On October 7, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States dashed the hopes of the business community for relief from website access litigation when it announced that it had denied Domino’s Pizza, LLC’s petition for certiorari. The petition sought review of a recent decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Department of Justice has finally broken its long silence on website accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the news is both good and bad.
In its second pro-plaintiff decision in as many months, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has held that blind website accessibility plaintiffs need not show that difficulty using a place of public accommodation’s website also caused a lack of equal access to the physical place of the public accommodation.
On June 19, 2018, in Haynes v. Hooters of America, LLC, 2018 WL 3030840 (11th Cir. 2018), the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals eliminated a useful defense strategy in the website accessibility arena when it held that a business’s agreement to remediate its website in a prior, private settlement did not render moot subsequent actions seeking the same relief.
In a move that surprises no one, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced today, December 26, 2017, that it has officially withdrawn its two Advanced Notices of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) related to website accessibility: one under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applicable to state and local governments and one under Title III applicable to private businesses open to the public.
On November 8, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire joined the ranks of the federal courts that have held that a website itself is a place of public accommodation—even if the business that maintains the website does not own or operate any physical place of public accommodation.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has placed its once-planned website accessibility regulations under Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on an inactive list, putting to rest speculation about what the Trump administration may do with respect to the long-promised regulations.
The U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board) finalized a regulation this week that will make the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) Level AA the design standard when interpreting and implementing Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires federal agencies and contractors to make their websites accessible to disabled individuals. Affected federal agencies and contractors will have one year from the publication of the final rule to comply with the revised 508 standards, which would place the compliance deadline sometime in early 2018.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that it is expediting its timetable and expects to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding accessibility of state and local government websites in July of 2017. The comment period for this NPRM would close in September of 2017. The DOJ’s announcement in the Unified Agenda also indicated that it continues to expect the regulations under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act to pave the way for the Title III regulations applicable to private businesses’ websites.
Long after the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Statements of Interest (SOI) were filed in June of 2015 in the cases involving Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), touching off a flood of litigation and threatened litigation, the magistrate judge has issued her report and recommendation to the district judge that the defendants’ motions to dismiss be denied. While subject to objections and the district judge’s determination, the decision is a setback for those who do not currently have websites that are accessible to persons with disabilities.
In my last blog post, “To Fee or Not to Fee—The Pros and Cons of Payroll Cards,” I discussed the growing popularity of payroll cards and several U.S. senators’ plea for guidance on this burgeoning pay practice. Perhaps in response to that letter, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), on…..
Payroll cards are having a moment. Recent articles in The New York Times, USA Today, and ABCNews.com have all highlighted the growing trend of employers paying wages to their employees via debit card. In addition, several U.S. senators recently asked federal agencies, in a strongly worded letter, to issue guidance…..
