Being sued because our website is not accessable to the visually impared

A public company shouldn't have to have an accessible website?

Are you against the ADA in general, or do you just not care about other people?

So if my daughter has an anxiety disorder that deals with noise, should a restaurant kick everyone out just to accommodate my daughter to eat at their restaurant in peace? Where does this stop? Isn't the ADA for employers, not businesses serving customers?
 
So if my daughter has an anxiety disorder that deals with noise, should a restaurant kick everyone out just to accommodate my daughter to eat at their restaurant in peace? Where does this stop? Isn't the ADA for employers, not businesses serving customers?

I don't know what ADA says about such things. I'm guessing you do, and I'm also guessing that, given the timeframe when ADA was written and passed that there isn't much in there for mental vs. physical disabilities/disorders.

But, I think a restaurant that can make a reasonable accommodation like seating you in a separate room should make every effort to do so, at a minimum.

Depends on the website and business. In my business, I can't imagine a blind person ever using what we sell. It may or may not be ADA compliant.

I don't think a blind person is going to be directly using your products, but what about a blind person employed in the purchasing department of a larger business?
 
I don't think a blind person is going to be directly using your products, but what about a blind person employed in the purchasing department of a larger business?

Then they don't need pictures, just part numbers, because there's no way a blind person is going to be able to determine from a textual description whether or not it would work for an application and the engineer/requisitioner is going to give them that part number. They certainly aren't going to say, "find me something that looks like this."
 
Then they don't need pictures, just part numbers, because there's no way a blind person is going to be able to determine from a textual description whether or not it would work for an application and the engineer/requisitioner is going to give them that part number. They certainly aren't going to say, "find me something that looks like this."

Sure... But there's a big difference between "has part numbers in the ALT text to help a blind person find them" and "it may or may not be ADA compliant".
 
Isn't the ADA for employers, not businesses serving customers?

It's application is not limited just to employers. It applies employment (Title I), state and local activities (Title II), transportation (Title II), to public accommodations (Title III), telecommunications (Title IV) and other miscellaneous topics (Title IV).
 
Sure... But there's a big difference between "has part numbers in the ALT text to help a blind person find them" and "it may or may not be ADA compliant".

The part numbers are in plain text. :confused:
 
The problem with the ADA is not the concept. It's the application, and the regulations issued to interpret it, that often leads to waste of resources. Thousands of dollars spent on a lift to let people get in and out of pools that never get used. It's not enough that a business provide assistance on demand. They have to spend the money on the equipment so that a person can do it themselves.

It also leads to excessive government control. There was a case a few years ago where a professional golfer sued the PGA because they would not let him use a golf cart in competition. The court found that because the golf course was a public accommodation, that trumped the PGA's right to determine what the rules of play in professional competition could be. Imagine that. A Federal court wasting it's time trying to determine what the rules of professional golf competition should be.
 
The part numbers are in plain text. :confused:

Yes. In most cases, plain text is considered accessible on its own. The main exception is form fields, which also require LABEL tags. Screen readers use the label tags to assure that the user is filling in the correct information requested by the field. Form fields that lack LABEL tags are non-compliant.

CSS pseudo-tables that lack actual TH, TD, and so forth tags are another thorny situation because screen readers understand tables and can use those tags to keep the values associated. CSS, not so much. Without the tags, the non-table tables may confuse a screen reader.

Rich
 
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So could a blind person sue Netflix?

Yes.... years ago I had a contractor work for me doing CAD work.. his wife was blind, and he was suing Target for there website not being blind compliant. He had sued the US Park service and won a lot of money and a contract for his wife to travel to every US national park site and review there blind compatibility.... on the taxpayers dime.

He had also filed against the city that they lived in for not having every crosswalk making noise... so a blind person knew when to cross. He also sued the company that I worked for when we let him go.... it was a mess.

He had some machine that could "read" a website and change the information to brail, thus allowing his wife to "read it'.... the machine was old and was not supported by then current technology... but he was still going after Target so his wife could order off the internet... With all the money they were getting form target. Really a blood sucking excuse for a person.
 
A public company shouldn't have to have an accessible website?

Are you against the ADA in general, or do you just not care about other people?

There's certainly plenty of ADA abuses out there, and I hate these troll lawyers... But having web sites, stores, etc be accessible to blind or otherwise disabled people is a benefit to our society, because it means those people are more able to be self-sufficient. I have a couple of friends who are blind (one lifelong, one as a result of an incident with undiagnosed hypertension) and being able to be functional online is HUGE to them.

@SixPapaCharlie, were I you, I would get your website accessible ASAP, and then tell those lawyers to pound sand.

I guess I view (pun not intended) a website as something that would (or should) be protected under free speech; in other words, if you don't like it, or can't read it, you're free to not to use it or patronize its business. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a bad idea business wise not to accommodate as many people as you reasonably can, but forcing it to do so by abusing ADA legislation is reprehensible to me.
 
From William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2. The full quote is "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".
 
From William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 2. The full quote is "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers".

You miss the context. If you want to plan a revolution, “kill all the lawyers.” Shakespeare was not disparaging lawyers, although this line is often used by people to want to.

Retired lawyer. Saw first hand how our judicial system “functions.”
 
The enabler of these ludicrous strike suits is that the ADA, while federal legislation and rules, includes a private cause of action. The intent was to allow for enforcement without government expenditure, but the effect was to create a new class of lawsuit leeches. Very few - almost none - of the suits filed over the ADA actually relate to people who sought, and were denied, the use of facilities they needed. Most have nominal plaintiffs, and legal teams harvesting money for the delivery of nothing of value.
 
The enabler of these ludicrous strike suits is that the ADA, while federal legislation and rules, includes a private cause of action. The intent was to allow for enforcement without government expenditure, but the effect was to create a new class of lawsuit leeches. Very few - almost none - of the suits filed over the ADA actually relate to people who sought, and were denied, the use of facilities they needed. Most have nominal plaintiffs, and legal teams harvesting money for the delivery of nothing of value.

Pretty much my exact words when I first got the letter.
 
Tell him you can teach him how to fly instead of paying the settlement.

***To the FAA reading this, this is a joke****
 
HE'S ASKING FOR FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!
Asking and getting are two different things!

Have an ADA specialist check out the lawyer’s office, parking lot, website, etc. for any violations. If necessary, make any necessary alterations to make it non-compliant. Counter sue for $1,000,000. :D
 
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A guy I used to work with got into a fight with his city council. Part of it was because he likes to fight with his city council, part of it was because he didn't want a new sidewalk being built in his front yard.

CC said they needed a sidewalk because there was an intersection with a crosswalk at the end of the street. This was in an older part of town and sidewalks and ADA compliant curb cuts and crosswalks hadn't been though of back when it was built.

He asked, "Why do we need a sidewalk?"
CC, "So blind people don't have to walk in the street."
Him, "I never see blind people walk in the street."
CC, "There is a blind resident in your neighborhood."
Him, "I never see him walk in the street."
CC, "Maybe that's because it isn't safe. And that's why we need a sidewalk."
Him, "How much is this going to cost?"
CC, "$x thousands of dollars."
Him, "Couldn't we get a taxi to take him to the corner for much less than $x thousands of dollars?"
CC, "That's not how this works."

He said he ended up getting a really nice sidewalk.
 
Cost to get the site fixed 24k per site. We have 3 sites.
 
I've been using one of those online clothing vendors where one of their fashion consultants picks out clothes for you.

The good news is they don't discriminate against hiring the blind.
The bad news is they don't discriminate against hiring the blind.

Bad-Men-Fashion.jpg
 
I bet a lot of folks want to avoid this sort of thing so bad they pay it.
 
Just pull the sites down and make them text only for a couple months with a statement of why and list the lawyers phone number. Especially if you arent selling anything off the site. Or sell the domain to an LLC with less than 15 employees so they dont have to comply.
 
I looked up the attorney, this ADA deal is his entire schtick
Does the complaint cover all 3 sites?

No but it wouldn't be too hard to figure out so the risk while low is still a risk.
The pain of it is I have a 2019 goal to rebuild all of the sites.

FYI anyone here own a webdev shop that can build an ADA compliant website that will integrate with MS Dynamics NAV?
 
I work with a food festival every year...we are being threatened with an ADA lawsuit because we do not have sign language interpreters for the hearing impaired...on the entertainment band stages!

Really? How entertaining could an underpaid sign language interpreter's revision of a cover band's revision of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" be anyway?

While I am all for reasonable accommodations, those ambulance chaser blood sucking lawyers are the lowest form of human existence there is IMO. We really need a Court of Common Senses before any lawsuit can be brought...or go to a looser pays system.
 
I think Jeff Dunham was doing his thing and noticed a signer in the audience. Decided to mess with them, and had the dummy's mouth moving, but nothing was being said. Deaf people were probably lik e"why aren't you signing?!? it's talking"
 
I work with a food festival every year...we are being threatened with an ADA lawsuit because we do not have sign language interpreters for the hearing impaired...on the entertainment band stages!

Really? How entertaining could an underpaid sign language interpreter's revision of a cover band's revision of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" be anyway?
I live in a town with a large deaf population, it's the home of the state deaf school.

We have an annual city-wide parade/carnival/festival. There are always some pretty good bands booked - Friday night is Country night, and Saturday night is Rock night. They always have interpreters signing next to the stage. It takes at least 2, they swap out every couple of songs. It's pretty interesting to watch them get into it.
 
I looked up the attorney, this ADA deal is his entire schtick

Yeah, it's a living.

No but it wouldn't be too hard to figure out so the risk while low is still a risk.
The pain of it is I have a 2019 goal to rebuild all of the sites.

Not a lawyer, but if you need to prioritize which one to do first, that's probably the one.
 
I looked up the attorney, this ADA deal is his entire schtick


No but it wouldn't be too hard to figure out so the risk while low is still a risk.
The pain of it is I have a 2019 goal to rebuild all of the sites.

FYI anyone here own a webdev shop that can build an ADA compliant website that will integrate with MS Dynamics NAV?

I know nothing about MS Dynamic NAV, so no on that.

By way of free advice, however, any new site built by any developer who has any idea what he or she is doing should be compliant from the get-go. It's not hard when it's done from the start.

Fixing an existing site can actually be a lot more difficult depending on how it was built. I haven't seen the sites, but I know that estimates like the ones you got are not unusual. It takes time to figure out how someone else did something, and then fix it.

Were the sites built with a standard framework of some sort?

Rich
 
This week was the 5 year anniversary of the installation of our "$10,000 Monument to Government Stupidity" -- a pool lift -- after settling a bogus ADA lawsuit out of court, and the rage I feel at the memory of this travesty is just as strong as the day it happened.

Therefore, this topic is sadly familiar to me, and I'm sorry that our friend Bryan is going through it. Just to recap, here's what happened to us:

In 2014, a legless Iraqi war veteran had a nice girl call 79 hotels in South Texas. Her job was to ask one question: "Do you have a handicapped pool lift in your swimming pool?"

When our part-time desk staff answered "Huh?", they thanked her, hung up -- and four days later we received a 2" thick packet from circuit court in Dallas, telling us that we were being sued for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act. This happened to the 78 other hotels, too.

Of course, my first call was to our best lawyer Spike, whose sage advice (and I paraphrase) went something like this: "Yes, this new ADA requirement is a pain, but the law is written so that you could win this case. Your hotel is grandfathered, having been built long before ADA, and compliance will present a major financial hardship. It's also illegal for this guy to be making an industry out of suing hotels."

I thought "Great! We're gonna kick this guy's ASS."

Then Spike continued: "HOWEVER, it will cost a lot of money to fight him, and you still might lose. It's probably less risky in the long run to pursue settling out of court."

This advice caused me great consternation. Every instinct in my body said to FIGHT. I wanted to fly to Minnesota to personally kick the guy's ass, I was so angry. The guy had NEVER set foot in my hotel. In fact, he had never set foot in Texas! EVERYTHING about this lawsuit was stupid, unfair, un-American, and just plain WRONG.

In the end, my lovely wife talked me back from the ledge, and we agreed to pursue a settlement. Because we were so small, and Spike was so persuasive, our legless vet was willing to accept "only" $3000 damages, plus we had to install a pool lift. I agreed.

So did 78 other hotels in South Texas. Our legless vet had himself quite a little payday.

To install the pool lift meant digging up the pool deck, since the concrete was never designed to support a 350 pound walrus on a chair lift at the end of an arm suspended over water. So the concrete work was extensive -- an 8" pour -- and the end cost was $10,000 for the lift. With his settlement, Mary and I had to cough up $13,000 to make this guy go away.

My stomach knots and my teeth grind just to type that!

What makes this law especially onerous is that the lift must, by law, be used by the crippled person WITHOUT assistance. This means it must be fully autonomous, which means we can't help them. Worse, in a salt environment, keeping it operational is almost impossible. Just keeping the battery charged is tough, and fighting the corrosion is a daily issue.

To this day, five years later, the lift has never been used by a handicapped person. In fact, the ONLY person to have used it, to our knowledge, was a drunk guy who rode it out and used it as a diving board. We've got him on video.

So in the end, this lift isn't merely useless -- it actually presents a clear and present risk to my hotel, as it is far more likely to be abused than used. Someday someone will break their neck on it, and we will be sued for THAT.

Good luck, Bryan. ADA is the most abused law every written -- but no Congress critter wants to be seen on TV going up against a poor, helpless, legless Iraqi war veteran on the floor of the Senate -- so we are stuck with it.

Just drop your shorts, open your wallet, and say "ahhh!"... :-(
 
Holy ****! Did someone look into a mirror and say @Jay Honeck five times? :D :rofl:

Thanks for stopping in, Jay!

Weird, isn't it? I haven't been here for months, and I just happen to look at "New Posts" in passing (without even bothering to sign in), and see poor Bryan's tale of woe.

All on our 5-year-anniversary week. It brought back many bad memories!

Oh, I never mentioned -- the damned pool lift survived being submerged in a 5.5' saltwater hurricane storm surge. lol
 
...In fact, the ONLY person to have used it, to our knowledge, was a drunk guy who rode it out and used it as a diving board. We've got him on video.....

POST THAT VID!! POST THAT VID!!

C’mon, Jay......do it for the PoA peeps!!! Pleeeeeease!
 
A local business went through something similar, although it wasn’t a lawsuit, it was the planning department that was on his back. The business was a uniform shop, selling clothing and equipment to police and firefighters. (At that time, he sold only public safety uniforms - no healthcare or other uniforms.)

Planning came in and told him he needed wheelchair access. The way his building was, that meant an elevator in back. The building was partly on hillside, so the floor was too far above the parking lot to put in a ramp. He argued and fought it, but was forced to spend 10 grand on the lift.

How many people used it? In the years he was at that location, exactly zero. You see, police officers and firefighters aren’t in wheelchairs. And if they are injured and need to use one, they won’t be needing unifoms, boots or gunbelts and equipment pouches.

ADA needs a serious rewrite.
 
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