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In the article, the author discusses website accessibility law issues under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 and how to address them. ADA aims to eliminate discrimination based on disabilities. Also cited are the rapid rise of federal lawsuits due to violations of ADA's Title III and the efforts by foreign governments and standard-setting organizations like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure internet accessibilityfor all users.

The article focuses on the accessibility challenges faced by visually impaired individuals, particularly at street intersections, and the role of Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) in addressing these challenges. It discusses the legal framework provided by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and related statutes, examines relevant court cases, and advocates for the implementation of APS as a solution to enhance the independent navigation of blind and low-vision pedestrians.

Some commentators have criticized the Supreme Court's 2016 decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and especially the Court's 2021 decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez for limiting Congress' authority to confer standing by statute. For example, in his article, Injury in Fact Transformed, Professor Cass Sunstein argues that TransUnion is a "radical ruling" that uses the injury in fact standing requirement to limit the authority of Congress to enact only statutes that address harms that have a close relationship to traditional or common law harms. By contrast, Professor Ernst Young argues that the Supreme Court's injury in fact doctrine is justified in light of the history of equitable practice requiring a "grievance" rather than just a cause of action. The question of how much the TransUnion decision has narrowed Article III standing has resulted in a circuit split regarding when civil rights testers filing suits under the Americans with Disabilities Act have standing. The Tenth Circuit's 2022 decision in Laufer v. Looper and similar decisions in the Second and Fifth Circuits have read the TransUnion decision to limit but not eliminate the broad tester standing in the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman. By contrast, the First Circuit, in its 2022 decision in Laufer v. Acheson Hotels, LLC, explicitly rejected these decisions in the Tenth, Second and Fifth Circuits to conclude that the TransUnion decision had not overruled the expansive tester standing in Havens Realty. The Eleventh Circuit had previously taken a similar position as the First Circuit but did not explicitly disagree with other circuits. On March 27, 2023, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in the First Circuit decision for the 2023-24 term. This is an important issue because a broad reading of the TransUnion decision could limit tester standing and affect many other federal statutes that go beyond traditional common law damages. This article will argue that one's view of standing issues depends heavily upon whether one favors expansive government regulation as a social good or is a libertarian skeptical of government regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the electronic age has taken hold of the global community, and digital devices have become the mainstay of human interaction, new accessibility barriers have emerged for people with disabilities. Although most courts now conclude virtual inaccessibility is an injury cognizable under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, great ambiguity surrounds the injury-in-fact requirement of Article III standing in online accessibility cases. Despite pleading for elucidation and clarifying principles, federal district courts have been left to navigate the uncharted territory of the digital injury-in-fact inquiry with exiguous guidance from higher courts. The resultant confusion in the federal courts has manifested itself as diametrically contradictory injury-in-fact holdings in factually identical cases, both inter- and intra-circuit. This Comment clarifies the digital injury-in-fact inquiry by identifying and dissecting four crucial issues dividing federal courts in ADA Title III online accessibility cases: (1) the location a plaintiff must intend to return; (2) the application of the geographic intent-to-return test factors in cyberspace; (3) the role of future injury; and (4) the scope of virtual standing. First, this Comment argues the destination of a plaintiff's intent to return is preordained by the type of injury alleged by the plaintiff. If a plaintiff alleges a purely virtual website injury, federal courts must assess the plaintiff's intent to return to the inaccessible website. If a plaintiff alleges a hybrid website injury, federal courts must assess the plaintiff's intent to return to the inaccessible website and intent to avail themselves to the goods or services of the public accommodation's brick-and-mortar location. Second, this Comment contends the geographic intent-to-return factors are not probative of a plaintiff's intent to return to a website. However, federal courts cannot merely remove the geographic factors from the intent-to-return test because the resulting analysis infringes on Supreme Court precedent. Rather, federal courts must substitute the intent-to-return test's geographic factors with factors appropriate in cyberspace. Third, this Comment asserts the injury-in-fact inquiry cannot be satisfied by past injury alone. Instead, federal courts must assess the plaintiff's likelihood of future injury. Finally, this Comment argues federal courts should not adopt a lenient approach to standing because a lenient approach is not necessitated by Supreme Court precedent, it is inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent, and it exacerbates the extant issue of serial litigation in online accessibility cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wave of remote work that has swept the nation since the COVID-19 pandemic has upended traditional notions about how and where work is performed. Advocates for disabled workers have lobbied for remote work for decades because the standard American workplace is designed around the nondisabled worker. The ability to work remotely is crucial to many workers with disabilities; it often determines whether they can maintain a job. And yet, most employers have refused to embrace remote work as a disability accommodation. This knee-jerk resistance to remote work has often been based on assumptions, past practice, and a lack of imagination rather than a careful, evidence-based examination of what is feasible and reasonable in a particular situation. In litigation, courts typically side with employers, basing their holdings on evidentiary practices that inevitably elevate employers' concerns over those of employees. This Article makes two unique contributions to the literature on remote work accommodations. First, it identifies and categorizes these sometimes subtle, but usually dispositive, evidentiary practices and analyzes how each is legally unsound. What the pandemic has taught us about remote work further erodes the bases for these practices, rendering them indefensible. Courts should abandon these evidentiary shenanigans. Second, this Article studies federal remote work accommodations decisions between April 2020 and December 2022. Results are mixed, but there are hopeful signs that some courts are changing practices in light of the mountain of data our pandemic-induced nationwide remote work experiment has generated. This change would be a welcome development for disabled plaintiffs that would help ensure they have a fair chance in court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the Americans with Disabilities Act has become a significant source of confusing and controversial litigation over website accessibility. This confusion and controversy stems from the fact that the Americans with Disabilities Act and its accompanying regulations offer zero explanation as to how the Act applies to websites. Faced with a circuit split, due process concerns, and a lack of any meaningful technical guidance from administrative agencies, defendant website operators are desperate for clear guidelines for how to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Adding to this desperation is a barrage of opportunistic lawsuits, dubbed “surf-by lawsuits,” being filed nationwide against thousands of businesses whose websites are not entirely accessible. Because courts are unwilling to declare a measurable level of accessibility that satisfies the Americans with Disabilities Act as a matter of law, these defendants are forced to either spend the tens of thousands of dollars required to litigate their cases all the way, or settle. On the surface, it may seem like a good thing that these lawsuits are making the internet more accessible. However, the practical result of the current legal landscape is that almost every defendant will settle, regardless of how accessible its website is and regardless of whether any individual with a disability has actually been denied equal access. Most of the settlement agreements contain only a vague promise by the defendant to make the website more accessible. Furthermore, the disabled individual is unable to recover damages; only attorney’s fees are recoverable under the Act. This has led many to believe that the involvement of the disabled plaintiff is often pretextual. Rather than accept this flawed system, this author believes there are legal solutions to the confusion surrounding the Americans with Disabilities Act, which could be fairer to both defendants and individuals with disabilities. Part I of this Note begins by providing some background on the Americans with Disabilities Act and the standards used for measuring website accessibility. Part II describes the current state of the law, including a discussion of the circuit split, due process concerns, and judicial articulations of what the ADA requires from a technical standpoint. Finally, Part III advocates how to move forward with resolving the circuit split and creating clear technical standards for website accessibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses legal issues on disabilities and employment discrimination in the U.S., particularly the implementation of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) to protect people with disabilities. Also cited are how courts are adjudicating the interpretation of disability that denied protections to people with disabilities, and some court cases like Shell v. Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. STME.