Engineering Services and Products Website Access for the Blind ADA Class Action

Many blind or visually-impaired people can still use websites, provided the websites are properly designed to work with a screen reader. The complaint for this class action alleges that Engineering Services and Products Company does not bother to make its website accessible in this way and therefore violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

The class for this action is all legally-blind individuals in the US who have tried to access Engineering Service’s website and been denied access to equal enjoyment of goods and services offered by by the website, during the applicable statutory period.

Plaintiff Milton Williams is legally blind. Technically, that means he has a visual acuity of 20 x 200 or less. Some such people have limited vision; others have no vision. Williams uses a screen reader to access websites.

In September 2018, Department of Justice (DOJ) Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote to Representative Ted Budd, confirming that if a company or other entity is a public accommodation, it must any website it owns, operates, or controls accessible to persons with disabilities.

The complaint quotes the letter as saying, “The Department [of Justice] first articulated its interpretation that the ADA applies to public accommodations’ websites over 20 years ago. This interpretation is consistent with the ADA’s title III requirement that the goods, services, privileges, or activities provided by places of public accommodation be equally accessible to people with disabilities.”

This should apply to the website of defendant Engineering Services and Products Company as well.

The complaint points out that Internet access is particular important during the pandemic. The complaint claims, “During these unprecedented times, disabled individuals risk losing their jobs, experiencing difficulty acquiring goods and services like health care, and not having the information they need to stay safe.”

For screen readers to work properly, information on a website must be able to be put into text form. The World Wide Web Consortium, a standards organization, has issued version 2.0 of its Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) to assist companies and organizations with this process.

However, plaintiff Williams claims that the website in fact is not accessible or usable with a screen reader. Among the barriers he found were the following:

• Lack of alternative text (alt-text) or a text equivalent, so that images and graphics can be read as text. Alt-text does not show on the screen for sighted visitors; it is embedded beneath the image and the screen reader vocalizes the text. Without alt-text, blind or visually-impaired people cannot see what is on a website, browse, or make purchases.
• Empty links without text, so that the function of the link cannot be read by the screen reader.
• Redundant links, where adjacent links go to the same URL, requiring additional navigation moves and repetition.

The complaint asks that the company retain a consultant to take measures to make the website equally accessible and to maintain it in that form in the future.

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Civil Rights
Tags: Americans with Disabilities Act, Blind or Visually Impaired, Civil Rights