Offered by AudioEye
In 2020, a blind buyer named Juan Alcazar filed a lawsuit towards Style Nova, alleging that the corporate’s web site was inaccessible and denied blind prospects the identical entry as everybody else.
It was, in some ways, an extraordinary internet accessibility lawsuit. One in every of many filed in federal court docket that 12 months. Most ended the identical means: administration distraction, a pledge to repair accessibility points, authorized charges after which a five-figure settlement.
However this case didn’t settle. Style Nova fought it.
5 years and greater than 200 filings later, they agreed to pay $5.15 million to settle what had grow to be a category motion lawsuit. The declare advanced from a single grievance into the second-largest accessibility settlement on file, surpassed solely by Goal’s $6 million settlement in 2008.
It’s a stark reminder of how shortly an accessibility declare can escalate, and why each enterprise chief ought to deal with that threat as actual, pressing, and solvable.
Accessibility lawsuits are growing. So is threat.
Since 2020, the variety of internet accessibility lawsuits has steadily risen. In 2024, over 4,000 lawsuits have been filed in the USA. And people are simply the instances that attain court docket. Behind the scenes, demand letters are much more prevalent, with a number of sources, together with Accessibility.com, estimating that over 250,000 letters are despatched to companies yearly.
Usually, these fits hinge on widespread accessibility points, equivalent to lacking alt textual content or unlabeled types. Below legal guidelines just like the Individuals with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, plaintiffs don’t must show intent or important hurt. Merely encountering a barrier is sufficient.
Accessibility compliance isn’t only a U.S. problem, both. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) took impact in July 2025, increasing accessibility obligations to any enterprise providing digital services or products within the EU, together with corporations situated outdoors the EU, impacting world manufacturers.
And whereas many assume that solely massive corporations are topic to authorized threat, in 2024, practically three-quarters of internet accessibility lawsuits focused small and mid-sized companies.
For billion-dollar manufacturers like Style Nova, there’s all the time the choice to dig in and combat an accessibility declare. Nonetheless, for smaller companies, the chance of a protracted authorized battle and a considerable settlement might be too excessive. Settling shortly is commonly perceived because the ‘secure’ alternative — a incontrovertible fact that corporations focusing on serial litigation are all too conscious of.
Make accessibility a primary line of protection
Accessibility lawsuits have a sample: as soon as an organization is sued, it’s more likely to be sued once more. Accessibility.com additionally studies that in 2024, 48% of defendants had beforehand been sued for internet accessibility obstacles.
That’s why good threat administration isn’t nearly having a plan to reply. It’s about decreasing the possibilities of being on somebody’s radar within the first place. And that begins with a course of for locating and fixing accessibility points earlier than they’re delivered to consideration in a requirement letter or authorized declare:
-
Set up a baseline of web site accessibility by utilizing automated scans at the side of human evaluations.
-
Prioritize high-severity obstacles, or these most certainly to spark a declare, and tackle them promptly.
-
Repeatedly monitor web sites to search out and repair points earlier than they grow to be liabilities.
-
Doc progress to show ongoing enchancment if questioned.
-
Combine accessibility into on a regular basis workflows, making accessibility a part of organizational tradition.
A scalable strategy to accessibility compliance
AudioEye’s 2025 Digital Accessibility Index analyzed over 15,000 web sites throughout totally different industries. The typical web site had 297 accessibility points per web page — together with critical issues like unlabeled buttons or damaged kind fields.
Fixing just a few accessibility points may sound manageable. However when there are dozens of internet pages, every with a whole bunch of distinctive points, it shortly turns into an operational nightmare.
The largest problem is serving prospects whereas addressing numerous accessibility points. Counting on builders to search out and repair a whole bunch of points per web page is difficult sufficient. Nonetheless, groups additionally need to deal with the truth that every web site replace presents an opportunity to introduce new obstacles inadvertently. Automation helps, however no automated device can discover and repair every part (it doesn’t matter what some accessibility corporations declare of their advertising and marketing campaigns).
The best strategy blends automation and human experience to:
-
Scale detection and prevention: Let automation do the heavy lifting, scanning websites in actual time and fixing new points as they seem.
-
Sort out complicated fixes: Depend on specialists to check key pages and repair the high-risk points that automation can’t deal with by itself.
With these items in place, organizations can forestall critical accessibility points from accumulating, whereas making websites a lot safer from authorized claims. That’s threat administration in motion: not scrambling after the actual fact, however planning forward with the suitable instruments, experience, and processes in place.
The price of doing nothing
Even the smallest internet accessibility declare can disrupt companies. Settlements might vary from just a few thousand {dollars} to 6 figures. Nonetheless, the precise price extends past this: authorized charges, time spent resolving points, and government focus being diverted from different priorities.
After which there’s the larger threat: escalation. Alcazar v. Style Nova, Inc. gained’t be the final massive accessibility settlement. Nonetheless, it serves as a transparent reminder of what can occur when an accessibility declare snowballs into one thing a lot bigger.
The businesses that handle threat finest aren’t good. However they know the place they stand. They’ll present progress. And when a declare is available in, they know the best way to reply.
Accessibility might not really feel like a threat in the present day. But when organizations wait till it does, it’s already too late.
Deal with it like what it’s: a enterprise threat value managing — earlier than it turns into a enterprise threat that may’t be ignored.
David Moradi is CEO of Audioeye.
Sponsored articles are content material produced by an organization that’s both paying for the put up or has a enterprise relationship with VentureBeat, and so they’re all the time clearly marked. For extra data, contact gross sales@venturebeat.com.
