[NFB-Idaho] Fwd: [blindLaw] Domino’s loses in lawsuit over website accessibility | athNation's Restaurant News

[Donald Winiecki]

Dramatic news from the NFB's "BlindLaw" listserv.

The ADA applies to website accessibility.  See the forwarded message from
BlindLaw below.

_don



---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Nightingale, Noel via BlindLaw <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Date: Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 11:35 AM
Subject: [blindLaw] Domino’s loses in lawsuit over website accessibility |
athNation's Restaurant News
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Nightingale, Noel <Noel.Nightingale at ed.gov>



https://www.nrn.com/news/supreme-court-hands-win-blind-man-who-sued-domino-s-over-website-accessibility?NL=NRN-01a&Issue=NRN-01a_20191007_NRN-01a_857&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_1_b&utm_rid=CPG06000000059707&utm_campaign=33738&utm_medium=email&elq2=a48dd89435d64bc0b51f486bee637dc2
Supreme Court hands win to blind man who sued Domino’s over website
accessibility
Court denies the petition filed by the pizza chain, upholding the lower
court ruling

Joanna Fantozzi</author/--6> | Oct 07, 2019

The Supreme Court has denied a petition from Domino’s Pizza Inc. following
a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that ruled in favor of a
blind man named Guillermo Robles who sued the chain when he was unable to
order pizza off the Domino’s website or mobile app even with screen reading
technology. The Supreme Court decision will leave the original ruling in
place, which maintained that the company must make its website and mobile
app accessible under the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

The case was originally filed in September 2016 in the Central District of
California as Robles v. Domino’s Pizza LLC. After a March 2017 decision by
a district judge initially dismissed the lawsuit stating that it “would
violate Domino’s due process rights” because the Department of Justice had
“failed to provide helpful guidance,” the lawsuit went to the Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals.

Related: Opinion: Restaurateurs, Don’t roll over
yet</operations/opinion-restaurateurs-don-t-roll-over-yet>

In a January 2019 decision<
http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/01/15/17-55504.pdf>,
the Court of Appeals reversed the initial ruling in a unanimous decision,
stating that, although ADA compliance generally applies to “places of
public accommodation,” the act never actually states that that ADA
compliance must occur “in a place of public accommodation.”

“The panel stated that the website and app connected customers to the goods
and services of Domino’s physical restaurants,” the Ninth Circuit decision
stated. “To limit the ADA to discrimination in the provision of services
occurring on the premises of a public accommodation would contradict the
plain language of the statute.”

Related: House approves ADA amendment to protect
businesses</operations/house-approves-ada-amendment-protect-businesses>

The Court of Appeals also ruled that the compliance mandate did not violate
the company’s Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process because the
company had been given adequate time to comply and that “the ADA
articulates comprehensible standards” to which companies have to conform in
order to be in compliance with federal law. The court also ruled that “lack
of specific regulations” as outlined in the ADA does not exempt Domino’s
from following the law.

Following the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, Domino’s pled their
case with the Supreme Court. By denying their petition on Monday, the
Supreme Court upholds the Court of Appeals decision.

In 2018, over 2,200 lawsuits have been filed over website accessibility, a
181% increase from the year before, according to data<
https://blog.usablenet.com/2018-ada-web-accessibility-lawsuit-recap-report>
from digital accessibility-focused technology company Usable Net, with the
food service industry being one of the top industries named in litigation.

Contact Joanna Fantozzi at joanna.fantozzi at knect365.com<mailto:
joanna.fantozzi at knect365.com>

Follow her on Twitter: @joannafantozzi<https://twitter.com/JoannaFantozzi>


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