Beyoncé Is Not Macy's, The Marriott, Or A Highway Rest Stop
The Americans with Disabilities Act has been a cash cow for what we might call wheelchair ramp chasers -- scam artist lawyers filing case after case to squeeze money out of businesses for violating the act, sometimes in the most minor ways (like, say, with a wheelchair ramp an inch smaller than a code demands).
Mark Pulliam writes at City Journal that Beyoncé is the predatory lawyers' latest target.
Is it Beyoncé's fault that some of her fans are blind? Is the performer a "public accommodation," like a hotel, restaurant, or department store? Is it society's obligation to rectify all misfortunes in life's lottery? These questions may seem silly, but they lie at the heart of a cottage industry of abusive class-action litigation against websites pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, a well-intentioned but poorly conceived--and horribly drafted--law that continues to generate unintended consequences decades following its passage in 1990. Computer users afflicted with various disabilities--blind consumers seem especially litigious--regularly sue companies hosting websites that allegedly aren't sufficiently "accommodating" of their condition. Beyoncé and her website (beyonce.com), through her management company, became their latest target....Such lawsuits plague merchants engaged in e-commerce, even though the ADA was enacted before the advent of the Internet. Wheelchair ramps and restroom grab rails are among the accommodations that businesses with physical premises must provide for disabled patrons, pursuant to regulations adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice to implement the ADA. No such rules exist for websites. Congress's silence on the topic has not deterred disabled consumers from filing extortionate lawsuits under the ADA. Most businesses choose to settle to avoid exorbitant (and unrecoverable) defense costs.
As I've pointed out in City Journal, applying the ADA to websites exposes businesses to "the worst of both worlds: mandates without directions." The Beyoncé lawsuit is an example. She is not a "brick and mortar" establishment. She is an entertainer--singer, songwriter, actress, and dancer--with a huge social media presence. Beyonce.com is primarily a marketing platform to update fans and promote her music and upcoming live shows. The site, brimming with photos of the star and archived media coverage, also advertises her line of fragrances and peddles some themed swag and inexpensive apparel such as t-shirts and sweats. It's basically a cyber fan club.
For plaintiff Mary Connor, a visually impaired New York resident who requires screen-reading software to read website content on her computer, beyonce.com represents nefarious discrimination in violation of Title III of the ADA because it is an exclusively visual interface, making it impossible for Connor and other visually impaired customers to browse the site or make purchases without the assistance of a sighted companion. In this respect, the website is no different than a newspaper, magazine, or mail-order catalog. Connor's specific complaint is that she wanted to buy an embroidered hoodie but couldn't, denying her the "full and equal access to, and enjoyment of, the goods, benefits and services of Beyonce.com." The class-action lawsuit seeks to compel Beyoncé to add features to make the website accessible to blind and visually impaired users, and--of course--to receive "compensatory damages" and attorneys' fees. Alternatively, Beyoncé could simply shut down beyonce.com or discontinue selling themed merchandise on the site, inconveniencing millions of her sighted fans--an outcome that apparently does not concern Connor.
I've personally taken action to see that my neighborhood is accessible for an older man who buzzes around on a motorized scooter -- doing things like moving the Bird scooters out of the way.
I think it's a good thing and the right thing to do to see that people in wheelchairs can get around in our society -- like by having wheelchair ramps on city sidewalks so people in wheelchairs are not forced to be endangered in the street.
However, Pulliam explains, "the plaintiff and her lawyer are serial ADA litigants, sometimes referred to as 'ADA trolls.'" And as he puts it about how things should be:
It is not Beyoncé's responsibility to remedy the disadvantages of nature or accident. Web-accessibility lawsuits seek more than the cessation of "discrimination"; they want to neutralize the negative effect of the disability itself.Richard Epstein, the noted libertarian legal scholar, warned that this type of intervention is "no longer a simple matter of removing obstacles, but the far more grandiose objective of providing massive subsidies to help the disabled, no matter the cost to the economy as a whole, and no matter the impingement upon the rights of others not covered by some Federal statute." It is well past time for Congress to put a stop to this senseless litigation.
How crazypants does this get? This crazypants, via @Overlawyered's Walter Olson, by Kristina M. Launey on Robles v. Domino's Pizza:
Domino's argued, as a possible explanation for DOJ's inaction: "there is no such thing as an accessible website, and there never will be." He cited the plaintiff's expert's statement in Winn-Dixie, also cited by the Eleventh Circuit judges in that oral argument, that the expert had never seen a website that complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). To illustrate the difficulty businesses face in applying the guidelines, Domino's posited how detailed the alt-text behind a picture of a basketball needs to be to conform to the guidelines - if it has LeBron James's autograph on it, for example, does the alt-text need to go to that level of detail, or can it just say "basketball." He thinks the regulatory effort was stymied because the DOJ couldn't "wrap its head around" this.
The reality is, if nothing in the law changes and predatory lawyers keep predating, countless websites will be shut down -- those whose owners cannot afford to provide features for access for the blind. (Hell, I can't even afford the $300 software to make mine properly mobile!)
Even vast institutions are not immune to the shut-down solution. UC Berkeley, for example, removed more than 20,000 free online videos to comply with the ADA -- in lieu of spending a fortune adding closed captioning for the blind. So...instead of access for some, there's access for none. Yay, huh?
I figured the captioning thing would be handled by software. That's how it works for a lot of YouTube clips.
The captioning is often horrible, but it's horrible even when composed by human typists during live telecasts.
That's a quibble. Amy (/Pulliam/Olson) is right.
Crid at January 11, 2019 4:45 AM
How to design websites for blind and partially sighted people -
https://www.userzoom.com/blog/how-to-design-websites-for-blind-and-partially-sighted-people/
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 4:47 AM
How Blind People See the Internet
https://gizmodo.com/5620079/giz-explains-how-blind-people-see-the-internet
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 4:48 AM
Using the internet as a blind person
https://medium.com/@pdjohnson/using-the-internet-as-a-blind-person-fc4e09e294f0
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 4:48 AM
One thing to remember is that most people are reasonable.
I have a friend in a wheel chair whose husband and daughter play in an indoor soccer arena. The bar and viewing area are upstairs which is not accessible with a wheel chair.
The woman and the owner agreed to a deal that worked for both. She is carried upstairs in her wheelchair and gets all her drinks for free. This is not a perfect solution but it works.
Curtis at January 11, 2019 9:30 AM
"there is no such thing as an accessible website, and there never will be."
that's exactly the problem. While it sounds reasonable, actually adapting a site to specs ADA compliance pros recommend is a huge undertaking. And the assistive tech is very fragmented and often poorly designed. So adapting for one type often excludes other.
I was at a company going through this for their marketing site and it became apparent there was really no way to meet all of the requirements.
We'd calculated that it would actually be cheaper to hire support people to walk disabled users through the site remotely using software that enables you to share your computer screen with someone. But that's not ADA compliant ;)
Noah at January 11, 2019 9:43 AM
The internet ADA stuff is insane. How can you have captions for videos of cats? How can a blind person even navigate? Books are often available to the blind via Kindle type tools that read the text aloud. Video? Ok, now consider a deaf person looking a Youtube. How do you describe the music in captions? No way. Doesn't even make sense as a concept. What about the several flavors of color-blind? There are simply disabilities that cannot be fixed,esp on the internet.
Even the brick-mortar rules go too far. I have little sense of smell. All perfumes smell like simply flowers+sweet. If I go buy perfume for my wife should I demand special assistance? How could they help me? Should a dance club do something special for those with claustrophobia? There was a deaf person working retail and they wanted to do the cash register instead of stocking shelves. Owner said no and they sued and EEOC backed them up. How could that work? Demand that customers know sign language? There are some people lacking common sense out there.
cc at January 11, 2019 11:17 AM
> actually adapting a site to specs ADA compliance
> pros recommend is a huge undertaking.
It's actually not that bad. See e.g. The ultimate guide to website ADA compliance: all you need to know (with visual tips)
https://www.digitalauthority.me/resources/ada-compliance-website/
Some of the things that need doing -
1. Ensuring that users can conduct all tasks on your website using a keyboard, and not the mouse is a critical part of having a ADA compliant website.
2. Alt text on graphics
3. All forms should have easy to see error messages with instructive messages on how to fix a form error.
etc.
None of these are particularly demanding or difficult to implement.
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 3:25 PM
You can even buy premade ADA compliant templates for under $100 -
https://www.pixelemu.com/blog/wordpress-themes/accessible-ready-wordpress-theme
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 3:27 PM
> Beyoncé Is Not Macy's, The Marriott, Or A Highway
> Rest Stop
I understand that this is supposed to be a clever title, but it seems fairly established law that any business considered a "public accommodation" should have an ADA compliant website.
Snoopy at January 11, 2019 3:34 PM
Tech solutions. For Google sources, this stuff is incidental.
> supposed to be a clever title
Are you disabled?
Crid at January 11, 2019 8:11 PM
Several years ago now I was involved with the website for the bank I was working for. There was a push to make them more accessible.
The internal site (I was only a user for it) was pretty easy. Most of its problem was it used a lot of color (green,red) for status. I believe a color-blind individual complained...that might have started the whole thing. The website was always quite clunky.
Another group did an external website that was quite slick. I was not part of the development but had the same status meetings as my group. It was extremely costly and they ended up developing 9 (I think) largely parallel sites. Most of them clunkier versions...for different support programs.
My project was spared most of it...because of the cost and it was a visualization tool...lots of charts,etc. Most of ours were things like high-contrast mode. Still costly. A few slick features were removed. I remember the evaluation firm we hired described our website as following the letter but definitely not the spirit.
The Former Banker at January 11, 2019 11:55 PM
YOU can't afford $300 so I can read this on my phone?
How are the rest of us supposed to go on?
I. Emma Lefty at January 13, 2019 5:51 PM
My son is severely developmentally disabled (as in, at age 6, he has yet to crawl, instead scooting around on his butt.)
I very rarely borrow the handicap parking placard from my wife or mother in law; as I see it, this kid is my gym. However, this weekend, I finally encountered a reason to complain about a lack of accommodation, at an indoor waterpark. He loves the water, and with a life jacket on, he's pretty fearless. The only access to a waterslide he loves is up a six story staircase, and he weighs 50 lb. Let's just say I was accutely aware of the fact that the weather has kept me from running for the last 4 weeks.
And yet, I felt held back by not wanting to be lumped in with these whiners in search of a payday. They ruin it for those with a legitimate issue.
bw1 at January 17, 2019 7:10 PM
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