As a follow-up I also mentioned to the Inquirer that the four tabs at
the bottom of their app are also unlabeled. Hopefully, they will be able
to address these issues.
On 6/23/2019 1:17 PM, David Goldfield wrote:
--
Robin,
I have alerted the Inquirer to this problem via Twitter. I also sent them a separate tweet asking them if they, along with the Daily News, could please work with NFB Newsline to resolve the issues with current editions of their respective newspapers not being uploaded to the service. I am very troubled that nobody from NFB Newsline has bothered to address my question. I can appreciate that Scott White may himself not be in a position where he might be able to provide a response. After all, if someone wrote to me regarding a certain policy or issue with their Comcast service I might not be in a position where I could directly respond to that individual for a variety of reasons. However, I would, at the very least, forward the inquiry to my manager or to someone who could compose a response. If Scott White is not in a position where he would be able to reply to my inquiry then my message should have been forwarded to someone who is in a position to reply. I'm aware that NFB Newsline is a free service. I have paid nothing for it and there has never been a contract or formal agreement with a promise of continued service to receive specific periodicals or newspapers. However, I don't see any valid reason why an inquiry about a newspaper which hasn't been updated in half a year should go unanswered unless our inquiries are somehow winding up in someone's spam mailbox.
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com
On 6/23/2019 12:47 PM, David Goldfield wrote:
John,
I agree. The real goal of these lawsuits should be to improve the overall accessibility and, therefore, usability of the site.
On 6/23/2019 10:52 AM, jhii926@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
A ‘blitz of lawsuits’ against Philly restaurants: Was it a ‘money grab’ or helping blind consumers?--
What is the point? If you just get money then how is that helping anybody?
*From:*blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *David Goldfield
*Sent:* Sunday, June 23, 2019 10:26 AM
*To:* blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [blind-philly-comp] Re: A ‘blitz of lawsuits’ against Philly restaurants: Was it a ‘money grab’ or helping blind consumers?
What is rather ironic about this is that the Philadelphia Inquirer app, which is where I first read this piece, contained four unlabeled buttons prior to the beginning of the article. If I can find their tweet containing a link to this article I will be sure to let them know this.
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist WWW.David-Goldfield.Com <http://WWW.David-Goldfield.Com>
On 6/23/2019 9:52 AM, David Goldfield wrote:
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philly-restaurants-ada-website-accessibility-lawsuits-20190622.html
<https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.inquirer.com%2Fnews%2Fphilly-restaurants-ada-website-accessibility-lawsuits-20190622.html&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cc377999e6265484850a808d6f7e20e76%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636968947606322345&sdata=2Byw1HYfReXZf4NXdr0XiPe4SGrpWy7A3eM9coGMETA%3D&reserved=0>
A ‘blitz of lawsuits’ against Philly restaurants: Was it a
‘money grab’ or helping blind consumers?
Christian Hetrick
<https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inquirer.com%2Fauthor%2Fchristian_hetrick%2F&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cc377999e6265484850a808d6f7e20e76%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636968947606332350&sdata=uIxdhM5K%2FcXFSPpmO7BX7tudYYYKJRZ%2BRvNpGcGl2LE%3D&reserved=0>
TYGER WILLIAMS / Staff Photographer
For nearly three months, the Philadelphia eateries were under
siege by a lawyer for blind New Yorkers.
In December 2017, lawyer C. K. Lee represented a Long Island man
who sued Federal Donuts, claiming the doughnut and fried chicken
shops’ website wasn’t fully accessible to blind people. The next
month, Lee sued again, this time for a client in Queens against
the Oyster House in Center City. Lee later targeted Campo’s Deli
on behalf of a Manhattan woman who, by that February, had
already sued six Philly restaurants with Lee as her lawyer.
Vedge, Green Eggs Cafe, and the Couch Tomato were sued over
their websites too, according to court records. When the blitz
of lawsuits ended in March, Lee had brought cases against 19
Philly-area eateries on behalf of eight blind New Yorkers.
“He kind of carpet-bombed the area,” said Matthew Monroe, an
attorney for Vedge.
Lee, who leads Lee Litigation Group, a 13-member New York City
law firm that has filed more than 1,000 class actions since
2009, did not return requests for comment.
The Philadelphia restaurants were caught in a wave of lawsuits
nationwide from disabled consumers who say company websites are
violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a 1990
civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on
disability. As more business is done online, many websites are
not fully accessible to the disabled, preventing them from
buying goods, making reservations, or accessing information
independently.
Still, the flurry of lawsuits has critics questioning whether
the legal actions are helping expand access, or if a handful of
lawyers are merely cashing in on a legal gray area.
There were 2,258 federal ADA lawsuits over allegedly
inaccessible websites in 2018, up 177 percent from 814 the year
before, according to Seyfarth Shaw, a Chicago-based law firm
that defends businesses in such cases. Most of the cases were in
New York, where more than 1,500 were mostly filed by 15 law
firms. Pennsylvania had the third-most federal suits last year
with at least 42, nearly all of which were brought by three law
firms, according to the Seyfarth Shaw data.
Shutting out some users
To be accessible for blind consumers, websites must be
compatible with “screen reader” software that reads web content
aloud or translates it through “refreshable braille" devices. If
a site is not properly coded, screen readers can’t describe an
image, for example, or convey what must be entered in online
forms. Blind consumers should be able to operate websites by
keyboard functions too.
Other issues include videos without captions for the deaf, or
flashy displays that could trigger seizures for those with epilepsy.
Such roadblocks can prevent blind consumers from accessing
potentially important information. John McInerney, a blind man
who is interim CEO of the Pennsylvania Association for the
Blind, said his credit card company sends emails made up almost
entirely of images that can’t be read by his screen reader.
Another common problem, McInerney said, is when websites ask
consumers to prove they’re human by typing in characters
displayed on a screen. Often, websites don’t make accommodations
for those who can’t see the test, shutting out blind consumers,
he said.
“When the ADA was passed, the internet wasn’t the social common
it is today. But people live their lives online today," said
Meredith Weaver, an attorney for Disability Rights Advocates,
which settled a website case against the streaming giant Hulu.
“The ADA was intended to flex with advancements in technology in
order to accomplish its purpose, and that purpose is promoting
full participation of people with disabilities in all aspects of
society.”
The new attention to web accessibility has created business
opportunities for firms like Accessibility Shield, a Norristown
start-up that launched in March and keeps clients compliant. The
10-employee firm has developed a search tool that scrapes web
pages to find violations, and offers manual testing and
consultation to fix violations. Ron Bowes, chief technology
officer at Accessibility Shield, said he plans to release open
source code for free to expand access on the web.
“Ninety-nine percent of the websites out there have some
violations,” said David Middleton, chief operating officer of
Accessibility Shield. “We want to get to the point where people
just think about it. You would not design a shopping center
without wheelchair ramps. We want to make it so you would not
design a website or digital application without accessibility.”
While there are no formal U.S. government standards for
businesses, a consortium of industries, universities, and
governments has developed widely respected Web Content
Accessibility Guidelines
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In 2017, the Justice Department scrapped plans to draft specific
rules on ADA website compliance, a move critics say opened the
door to more legal action. The Justice Department, which
declined comment this week, said at the time that it was
evaluating whether regulations were "necessary and appropriate.”
“This whole tsunami of lawsuits is largely the fault of the
Justice Department in failing to come up with clear guidance and
rules on what businesses need to be doing,” said Minh Vu, an
attorney at Seyfarth Shaw, the ADA defense firm.
More than 100 members of Congress signed a letter to
then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in June 2018, warning that
the absence of specific rules “fuels the proliferation” of the
suits.
“In most cases these suits are filed for the purpose of reaching
a financial settlement and do little or nothing to improve
website accessibility,” the lawmakers wrote.
Federal judges in Florida, New York, and California have allowed
high-profile website accessibility cases against the grocer Winn
Dixie, the burger chain Five Guys, and the pizza giant Domino’s,
respectively, to proceed. Those precedents, and the lack of
rules from the Justice Department, created a “perfect storm” for
Lee to bring cases against the Philadelphia eateries, said
Monroe, the lawyer for Vedge.
Of the 19 restaurant cases in Philadelphia last year, at least
11 settled, according to court records.
“There was a blitz last year in Philly of these lawsuits, but
they’re happening across the state. We call them drive-by
lawsuits,” said Melissa Bova, of the Pennsylvania Restaurant &
Lodging Association. “It’s a money grab that doesn’t address or
fix the issue of accessibility.”
Bova said the hospitality industry wants there to be a “notice
and cure” period that would give businesses time to come into
compliance to avoid a violation.
Settlements in such cases range from a few thousand dollars to
six figures, depending on the size of the company and the cost
to defend the case, those familiar with the agreements say.
The cost of compliance can also run from a few thousand dollars
all the way to six figures, especially if websites must be
rebuilt from scratch, web developers and defense lawyers said.
Accessibility Shield, the Norristown website tester, said it
charges monthly rates ranging from $10 to $126 to check websites
that are constantly changing.
Benjamin Sweet, an ADA plaintiffs lawyer based in Pittsburgh,
rejected the argument that lawyers and clients are in it for the
money, saying that’s a common argument from businesses losing
consumer cases. He said that the settlement amounts are too
small to encourage lawsuits and that most of his clients are
activists seeking remediation of the websites.
In Philadelphia, the eateries didn’t disclose settlement
amounts, but Conor Corcoran, a defense lawyer for Campo’s Deli,
said in court papers that “Lee begins the bidding at $30,000.”
After Corcoran flagged Lee’s long list of lawsuits in court
papers, Lee withdrew his lawsuit against Campo’s.
“It scared them off,” Corcoran said.
Lee hasn’t sued a Philly restaurant since.
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info
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David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my Web site WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
