Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker 2026

In 2025, plaintiffs filed 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in U.S. federal court— a 27% jump over 2024's 2,452 cases (Seyfarth Shaw / adatitleiii.com). Federal volume in that source series ranged from 2,256 to 3,255 filings per year between 2018 and 2025. State-court cases and private demand letters are additional activity, but their totals should be cited from the relevant publisher rather than added to the federal series. A comparable full-year 2026 federal count is not yet available on this page.

E-Commerce and Retail businesses are the most targeted industry, accounting for approximately 70% of all 2025 digital accessibility lawsuits. Food and Beverage companies are the second most targeted at 21%, followed by Healthcare (~2.5%), Entertainment (~2%), and Travel and Hospitality (~1.5%).

Settlement costs vary widely. Demand letter settlements typically range from $1,000 to $25,000. Out-of-court settlements average around $30,000 but can reach $150,000. Court judgments average $85,000 and class action settlements can exceed $6 million. In 2025, online retailer Fashion Nova agreed to a proposed $5.15 million class-action settlement in Alcazar v. Fashion Nova. The proposal has faced objections and should not be treated as a final judgment or admission of liability. Even defending a lawsuit with no damages typically costs $5,000 to $125,000 in legal fees.

While the ADA does not explicitly mention websites, multiple federal courts have ruled that websites of businesses open to the public are subject to ADA Title III requirements. The landmark Robles v. Domino's Pizza case in the 9th Circuit established that the ADA applies to websites and mobile apps. A circuit split exists, as the 11th Circuit ruled differently in Gil v. Winn-Dixie. On April 20, 2026, the DOJ issued an Interim Final Rule extending its Title II web/mobile compliance dates by a year — large public entities (population ≥ 50,000) now must conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA by April 26, 2027, and smaller entities by April 26, 2028. HHS also extended the first Section 504 web-accessibility deadline for covered funding recipients to May 11, 2027. A federal lawsuit filed in May 2026 challenges the DOJ and HHS extensions. These rules concern Title II and Section 504; they do not create a general safe harbor from private Title III litigation.

In 2025, New York led federal-court filings with 1,021 cases, followed by Florida (961, nearly double its 2024 total of 470), Illinois (585), Minnesota (162), and Pennsylvania (137). California recorded just 4 federal filings in the same review. The source attributes California's low federal count partly to appellate decisions concerning online-only businesses. It also notes that state-court lawsuits and demand letters are outside the federal figures shown here.

No checklist can guarantee that an organization will avoid a claim. A practical response is to work toward WCAG 2.2 Level AA, conduct regular accessibility audits, implement automated and manual testing, train development teams on accessible coding practices, publish an accessibility statement, and establish a process for receiving and addressing accessibility feedback. Organizations should ask qualified counsel to assess their specific legal obligations and jurisdictions.

No product can guarantee that a website is accessible or immune from a lawsuit. Industry reporting continues to identify claims involving sites that had widgets or other accessibility products in place. Automated tools can support a program, but they do not replace code remediation, keyboard and screen-reader testing, accessible design, monitoring, or a process for responding to disabled users' feedback.

AI-assisted drafting and automated scanning can reduce the effort needed to identify recurring barriers and prepare legal documents, but public datasets do not provide a consistent measure of how many filings were created with AI. Organizations should focus on the underlying user barriers and review complete journeys rather than trying to infer a claimant's tools. See our guide on how AI is fueling ADA website lawsuits for the full picture.