Each year, the number of lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) seems to grow. 2022 was a record-setting year for federal ADA digital accessibility lawsuits — but that changed dramatically in 2023.
According to an analysis from law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP, web accessibility lawsuits filed in U.S. federal court dropped by about 14% last year, as compared to 2022. That’s despite guidance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that clearly defines technical standards for Title II compliance.
An ever-growing number of court decisions have confirmed that the ADA applies to websites. So, what’s the deal? Why are federal courts seeing fewer cases about digital accessibility, and — most importantly — will the trend continue?
A small number of law firms are responsible for an outsized percentage of the total digital accessibility cases filed each year. As Seyfarth notes, a number of those firms began filing state-level cases in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania over the last year.
State-level cases are more difficult to track. It’s therefore possible that the total number of web accessibility cases did not meaningfully decrease in 2023 — the litigation simply moved to state courts.
For plaintiffs, state courts may offer advantages over federal courts:
To be clear, this is an assumption — while we know that the number of federal web accessibility lawsuits have decreased and state-level cases have increased, we can’t say that all lawsuits have simply moved to state court.
Related: Why New York Leads the U.S. in Digital Accessibility Lawsuits
Fortunately, it’s likely that federal lawsuits are dropping for another reason. More businesses than ever are paying attention to digital accessibility, and the internet is becoming a friendlier place for people with disabilities — albeit slowly.
In 2024, WebAIM’s (Web Accessibility In Mind) annual audit of the home pages of the internet’s top 1 million websites showed a slight decrease in the number of pages with detectable accessibility barriers.
By “slight,” we truly mean slight: 95.9% of tested pages failed to conform with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA. In 2023, that number was 96.3%.
Over the past five years, the number of pages with detectable WCAG failures has decreased by about 1.9%. That’s a small change, but it’s a move in the right direction — and since WebAIM focuses on the internet's most visited websites, it’s quite possible that conformance has increased more significantly for less well-known properties.
Litigants may have trouble finding targets for web accessibility lawsuits for other reasons:
Related: What Factors Affect Your Chances of a Web Accessibility Lawsuit?
Web accessibility lawsuits may be dropping, but the risk of litigation remains high — particularly for businesses that ignore their responsibility to users with disabilities.
Fortunately, the best practices of accessibility are fairly straightforward. Following WCAG improves compliance, and more importantly, it makes your website more useful for all visitors. Accessibility can improve user retention, increase brand loyalty, and attract more traffic through improved search engine optimization (SEO).
To learn more about business requirements under Title III, download the Essential Guide to ADA Compliance for Websites or send us a message to connect with an accessibility expert.