Website Developers Pay Attention, You May Be Liable If Your Website Is Not Fully Accessible

Here's an interesting case from a Superior Court in California.  That makes this a narrow ruling.  But, worth paying attention to if you develop websites.

The decision should have website developers paying much more attention to accessibility.  In the case there were:

allegations that the developer knowingly failed to do the design and testing activities needed to deliver an accessible website. It is significant that the alleged fraud included that false claim that automated testing of the website would be sufficient.

The case uses both the ADA and California's Unruh Act, so the Unruh component won't carry across state lines.  ADA of course will.

What's interesting to me, and got my attention is that Attorney Hunt in this posting also suggests a risk to those who sell remediation and consulting services to remediate websites.  When OCR determines there's accessibility issues with a school district website, they will require remediation and ask that an outside consultant be identified to help bring the website into conformance with WCAG 2.1 AA standards. 

The ruling makes it clear that just using automated testing of a website is not sufficient.  I like to use the WAVE web accessibility tool browser add-in.  It is always with me for every website I visit, and produces a simple report identifying errors.  There's also a detail of the errors, but the basic report makes the point, and it's not me saying there are problems.

But this case makes it clear that a web development contract that includes accessibility as a requirement needs to do more than using an automated tool to ensure full accessibility in compliance with ADA.

Website developers need to know and understand WCAG 2.1 AA standards more than ever.