e-Commerce Most Sued

Physical stores have wheelchair ramps and accessible restrooms. The ADA requirements for brick-and-mortar retail are well understood because the Department of Justice wrote specific regulations in 1991 and updated them in 2010.

Websites have no such regulations. The DOJ has issued guidance, but never formal rules. Courts have filled the gap by interpreting the ADA to apply to websites, particularly when those sites are connected to physical stores or allow customers to purchase goods.

Here's what makes e-commerce different from other websites. When a customer can't buy something, that's a denial of goods and services. The ADA prohibits exactly that. A brochure site for a law firm might be inaccessible, but the harm is informational. An e-commerce site that's inaccessible means a blind customer literally cannot give you money.

The complaints all say the same thing. The plaintiff tried to purchase something. They couldn't. They want the court to order the website fixed.

The numbers tell the story

TestParty analyzed Court Listener data and found that 77 percent of website accessibility lawsuits target e-commerce businesses . Shopify stores alone account for more than 30 percent of platform-identified cases.

January 2026 saw 472 ADA website lawsuits filed . That's a single month. Of those defendants, 139 had been sued before for the same issues. And 137 were sued while using some kind of accessibility widget or overlay.

The concentration is stark. E-commerce, food services, and healthcare account for most lawsuits, but e-commerce alone dominates. Consumer goods retailers, apparel companies, home goods stores—if you sell things online, you're in the primary target zone.

The Sara Campbell story

Sara Campbell runs a fashion business in Boston. She's got 22 stores along the East Coast and a website that's now the largest part of her operation .

In 2022, she got sued. The complaint alleged her website wasn't accessible to blind users. Campbell says she was naive about ADA compliance when she started. She hired Perkins School for the Blind. She hired an ADA coder. She thought she fixed everything.

Last summer, she got sued again. Two more lawsuits, same allegations.

According to Campbell, the latest claims involved a missing piece of code that specialized software could detect. "We were compliant," she told Boston 25 News. "They found something inside the code."

Her legal costs so far: almost $200,000. "We're a team," she said. "It hurts their bonuses. It hurts pay raises. It's real money."

Campbell's experience shows why e-commerce sites are vulnerable. Even after paying for expert help, after thinking the problem was solved, a single missing code element triggered new lawsuits. The margin for error is essentially zero.

The industrialization of lawsuits

Peter Braun is a Maine attorney who represents businesses in ADA cases. He told Boston 25 News that many lawsuits aren't really about accessibility . "It's all about attorney's fees."

Here's why. Under Title III of the ADA, plaintiffs cannot collect monetary damages. They can only get an injunction requiring the website to be fixed, plus attorney's fees if they win. That means the lawyer gets paid, not the client.

The structure creates what Braun calls "attorney-driven lawsuits." A small number of law firms file hundreds or thousands of nearly identical complaints. They use the same language in each one. They represent the same plaintiffs over and over.

One plaintiff who sued Campbell, Nelson Fernandez, has filed lawsuits against 312 businesses since 2022 .

The numbers get bigger. The law firm Mizrahi Kroub has filed more than 3,000 similar lawsuits . Gottlieb & Associates has filed more than 2,700. Stein Saks has filed more than 2,600.

These aren't law firms doing occasional civil rights work. They're litigation factories processing complaints like orders at a fulfillment center.

How plaintiffs find you

You might think getting sued requires someone actually visiting your site and struggling to use it. That's not how it works anymore.

Plaintiffs' firms use automated tools that crawl thousands of websites and flag detectable WCAG violations . Missing alt text on images? Detected instantly. Empty links or buttons? Instant. Missing form labels? Instant. Low color contrast? Instant.

A single homepage with 50 missing alt text instances creates a complaint that writes itself. The automated scan generates the evidence. The law firm files the lawsuit. The plaintiff never actually visited the site until after the scan identified it as a target.

According to WebAIM's 2024 analysis of one million homepages, 95.9 percent have detectable WCAG failures . The average page has 56.8 errors. That means almost every e-commerce site in existence has enough violations to support a lawsuit.

The targeting criteria are straightforward. Does the site sell things? Can an automated tool find obvious accessibility problems? Has the company been sued before and failed to fix everything? If yes to any of these, the site goes on a list.

The repeat defendant problem

Getting sued once increases your chances of getting sued again. Dramatically.

Of the more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits filed in 2025, 1,427 targeted companies that had already faced an ADA web accessibility claim . In federal court, 46 percent of cases involved repeat defendants.

The pattern is predictable. A company gets sued. They settle quickly and quietly. The settlement requires some fixes. The company makes minimal changes, often using an overlay or quick remediation that doesn't address underlying code problems. A different plaintiff's firm scans the site again, finds the same issues or new ones, and files another lawsuit.

This happens within months. The lawsuits themselves show that plaintiffs track litigation history. They know which companies settled without truly fixing their sites.

The overlay myth

Accessibility widgets and overlays have become a massive industry. Companies sell JavaScript tools that claim to make any site accessible with one line of code. The marketing is aggressive. The promises are absolute.

The reality is different.

In January 2025, the FTC fined AccessiBe $1 million for making "false, misleading, or unsubstantiated" claims about its overlay's ability to achieve compliance . The National Federation of the Blind passed a resolution in 2021 condemning overlays for making "misleading, unproven, and unethical claims."

More than 1,000 businesses using overlays were sued for accessibility violations in 2023 and 2024, representing over 25 percent of all digital accessibility lawsuits . The Overlay Fact Sheet, signed by more than 700 accessibility professionals including experts from Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Shopify, states plainly: "Overlays do not repair the underlying problems with inaccessible websites."

The technical reasons matter. Overlays operate as a JavaScript layer on top of existing code. They can't fix heading structure that needs HTML modification. They can't fix missing form labels that require proper <label> elements. They can't make custom widgets keyboard-focusable if the underlying code doesn't support it.

Some advocates now specifically target businesses using overlays to demonstrate that the technology fails in practice . Installing an overlay may actually increase lawsuit risk by signaling awareness of accessibility obligations while not actually meeting them.

The serial plaintiffs named in court filings

Barclay Damon LLP tracks these cases closely. In January 2026, they published an alert listing specific plaintiffs who have filed dozens of lawsuits in recent months .

Angel Jenkins filed 28 lawsuits since December 5, 2025. Represented by Mizrahi Kroub.

Washington Moran filed 17 lawsuits since September 27, 2025. Represented by Gottlieb & Associates.

Erika Randolph filed 15 lawsuits since July 18, 2025. Represented by Horowitz Law.

Caitlin Walsh filed 12 lawsuits since June 1, 2025, and 22 total. Represented by Stein Saks.

Geovanni Figueroa filed eight lawsuits on January 5, 2026 alone. Also represented by Stein Saks.

These aren't people who happened to encounter inaccessible websites while shopping. They're testers. They spend hours online looking for sites with broken links, missing alt text, and keyboard navigation failures. It's their full-time activity.

The law firms behind them have filed tens of thousands of cases combined. They know what courts require. They know which judges are favorable. They've refined their complaints over years of litigation.

What happened with Fashion Nova

The Fashion Nova case shows how big these lawsuits can get when they go class action, and why the DOJ is starting to push back.

In Alcazar v. Fashion Nova Inc., a proposed class action settlement would have paid approximately $2.43 million to California class members with valid claims, limited to $4,000 per household . The retailer also agreed to pay $2.52 million in attorneys fees and costs to plaintiffs' counsel.

The DOJ filed a statement of interest in February 2026 opposing the settlement . Their argument: the injunctive relief wasn't meaningful. It required Fashion Nova to modify its website "as needed" to achieve substantial conformance with WCAG 2.1, but with no confirmation mechanism and no enforcement.

The DOJ also noted that the settlement administrator's own website, where blind individuals would have to submit claims, was inaccessible to screen reader users . They hired a digital accessibility consultant who documented various barriers.

And in a footnote that got attention, the DOJ pointed out that Class Counsel had filed "the same exact lawsuit, on behalf of repeat plaintiffs" between 2019 and 2023 in over 500 cases, with most ending in confidential individual settlements .

The message was clear. Even when plaintiffs' attorneys win, the DOJ is watching how they structure settlements and whether actual accessibility improvements occur.

The transaction-to-risk ratio

Why e-commerce specifically? Because the harm is easiest to prove.

A blind person who can't read a blog post has been denied information. A blind person who can't complete a purchase has been denied goods. Courts understand transactions. They understand money changing hands. The connection to physical stores, where ADA coverage is unquestioned, feels stronger when money is involved.

E-commerce sites also have more complex functionality than brochure sites. Forms, checkout flows, payment processing, shipping options—each step introduces potential barriers. A missing alt tag on a product image might be minor. An inaccessible checkout flow that prevents purchase is a clear violation.

The retailers with the highest traffic get sued most often. Among the top 500 e-commerce retailers, 35.8 percent received at least one ADA accessibility lawsuit in 2025 . High traffic means more potential plaintiffs. Brand recognition makes it easier to establish intent to return, a legal requirement for standing.

The geography problem

Where you're incorporated matters less than where your customers are.

New York accounted for well over one-third of all state-level ADA website lawsuits in 2025 . Nearly 2,000 cases were filed in New York and California state courts combined. Federal filings added another 3,100-plus cases.

Florida reemerged as a high-volume jurisdiction, with monthly filings frequently exceeding 80 to 110 cases. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Missouri saw increased activity after years of relative quiet.

The legal theory: if users in these states can access your website, courts have jurisdiction. You don't need a physical store in New York to get sued in New York. You just need a website that New York residents can visit.

The cost breakdown nobody explains

If you get sued, here's what happens financially.

Most cases settle. According to TestParty's analysis, plaintiff's attorney fees typically range from $4,000 to $15,000 and are usually part of the settlement . Defense attorney fees run $10,000 to $50,000 or more if you fight. Settlement payments to the plaintiff or a charity range from $5,000 to $50,000.

Those numbers assume quick settlement. Contested cases cost more. The Winn-Dixie grocery chain case reportedly cost over $250,000 in legal fees before resulting in an unfavorable verdict.

Then there's remediation. Settlement agreements typically require website fixes within 90 to 180 days. You'll need an emergency audit: $5,000 to $25,000. Rush development work at premium rates. Consultant oversight, often required by the settlement. Ongoing monitoring for two to three years.

The Seattle Public Schools case budgeted $665,000 to $815,000 for remediation, training, and hiring an accessibility coordinator .

And none of this guarantees you won't get sued again. Forty-six percent of federal cases involve repeat defendants . Inadequate fixes invite additional litigation.

The chatGPT complication

Olshan Frome Wolsky, a law firm that tracks these cases, noted something new in late 2025. Plaintiffs are using tools like ChatGPT to draft lawsuits rather than hiring attorneys .

A NBC report cited in their analysis stated that this do-it-yourself trend makes lawsuits easier to file and harder to resolve. Pro se plaintiffs tend to have unrealistic expectations and make unreasonable settlement demands.

The barrier to filing keeps getting lower. Automated scans identify targets. AI generates complaint language. Courts receive filings that look professional enough to proceed. The defendant, a small business owner who just wanted to sell products online, now faces a legal process they don't understand and can't afford to litigate.

The European angle

Starting June 2025, the European Accessibility Act applies to large parts of the private sector in the EU . U.S. companies with European customers now face additional requirements.

The Act references EN 301 549, which is essentially WCAG 2.1 AA with some additions. If you sell to European customers, you're subject to European enforcement. Some U.S. companies are finding that compliance efforts triggered by EU requirements also help with domestic lawsuits. Others are ignoring it and hoping for the best.

What actually works

Given all this, what reduces risk?

Engineering-led compliance, where accessibility is built into development workflows rather than bolted on afterward, reduces the code-level issues that trigger lawsuits . Testing with real screen reader users catches problems automated tools miss. Documenting efforts shows good faith if you do get sued.

Magna Technology, which builds websites for clients, notes that common problems include images without alt text, poor color contrast, forms without proper labels, and videos without captions . Many issues stem from templates and page builders that weren't designed with accessibility in mind. Even expensive, professionally built sites often have significant problems if developers weren't specifically considering accessibility.

The companies that avoid repeat lawsuits do comprehensive remediation, not surface fixes. They test with actual assistive technology. They train staff to maintain accessibility when adding new content. They treat it as ongoing operational expense, not a one-time legal cost.

The small business reality

Sara Campbell's story is the one to remember. She did everything right after the first lawsuit. She hired experts. She spent money. She thought she was compliant.

They still found something. A missing piece of code. Another lawsuit. Another $200,000.

Small business owners quoted in the Boston 25 News investigation said similar things. "For a business, that kind of pressure can be extremely overwhelming," said Shir Donovick in Seattle. "You can't win them," said Ajeeta Khanna in Orlando. "This law needs to be looked at, because it is being abused," said Jacques Klempf in Jacksonville .

Judy McMorrow, a law professor emerita at Boston College who specializes in legal ethics, told the station that social-cause litigation can lead to meaningful change . "At the end of the day, what's happened? More blind people have access."

That's true. More blind people do have access because these lawsuits force companies to fix their sites. The tension is between genuine access improvements and a litigation system that sometimes feels like extortion.

Missouri is now the first state attempting to crack down on "sue and settle" cases with legislation aimed at reducing lawsuits that pressure businesses into quick payouts rather than meaningful accessibility improvements . Other states are watching.

The bottom line

E-commerce websites are the most sued because they combine clear commercial transactions, detectable technical failures, and a plaintiff's bar that has industrialized the litigation process. The numbers are predictable. The patterns are repeatable. The defendants are numerous.

If you run an online store, you're in the crosshairs. Not because you're a bad person or because you don't care about disabled customers. Because the system is structured to generate lawsuits, and e-commerce sites are the easiest targets.

The question is whether you'll be proactive or reactive. Proactive costs money and time. Reactive costs money, time, and the disruption of a lawsuit. Neither is free. But one of them lets you sleep at night.