ADA Website Lawsuits Are Rising: Why Compliance Helps You Win
Federal website accessibility lawsuits hit 3,117 in 2025, up 27%. Compliance won't stop every lawsuit, but it is how businesses win the ones that come.
Website accessibility lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are climbing again. Plaintiffs filed 3,117 of them in U.S. federal court in 2025. That is a 27% increase over 2024 and the second-highest yearly total since 2017, behind only 2022. No compliance step can promise you will never be sued. The goal is different: to make sure that if someone does sue, you are the one who wins.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a lawyer about your own situation.
The numbers
Seyfarth Shaw, a law firm that tracks ADA Title III filings from federal court dockets, counts federal lawsuits that allege a website is inaccessible. Their yearly totals:
| Year | Lawsuits |
|---|---|
| 2017 | |
| 2018 | |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | |
| 2021 | |
| 2022 | |
| 2023 | |
| 2024 | |
| 2025 |
Source: Seyfarth Shaw’s ADA Title III tracking, from its 2023 report (2017 to 2023), 2024 report and 2025 report.
A few things stand out:
- The long-term trend is up. Filings nearly quadrupled between 2017 and 2025. Drops of about 14% in 2023 and 13% in 2024 were almost exactly undone in 2025. Seyfarth links the rebound to new plaintiffs’ attorneys entering the field.
- Websites are a growing share of ADA cases. Of 8,667 Title III lawsuits filed in federal court in 2025, 3,117 (36%) were about websites, up from 28% in 2024.
- A few states dominate. In federal court, New York had 1,021 website cases, Florida 961 (nearly double its 470 in 2024) and Illinois 585. California had only 4. That is not because California is quiet. Plaintiffs there mostly file in state court, where state law adds money damages (more on that below).
- Federal court is only part of the picture. UsableNet, which also tracks key state courts such as New York and California, counts more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits in 2025.
- Being sued once does not end it. UsableNet found that 1,427 of those lawsuits targeted companies that had already been sued, nearly half of all federal cases. Settling without fixing the site leaves the same barriers for the next plaintiff to find.
The trackers do not always agree. UsableNet’s own count shows federal filings dipping slightly in 2025 while Seyfarth’s shows a 27% rise, because each defines and finds cases differently. Treat the numbers as a reliable direction, not an exact census.
Why businesses get sued
Title III of the ADA covers businesses open to the public. The Department of Justice says it applies to goods and services offered on the web, but it has not published a technical standard for business websites. Courts and settlements generally measure sites against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) at Level AA. We explain this in our ADA compliance guide for WordPress.
How much money is at stake depends on where you are sued. Under Title III itself, a private plaintiff can get an injunction (a court order to fix the site) and attorney’s fees, but not money damages. Some states add their own remedies. California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act sets minimum statutory damages of $4,000 per violation, which is why California cases are usually filed in state court. New York’s state and city laws also allow damages, and New York is the busiest venue in the country. Even where no damages apply, you pay your own lawyer, often the plaintiff’s fees as part of a settlement, and the remediation you needed anyway.
Compliance will not stop you from being sued
Let’s be direct about this. In the U.S. anyone can sue over almost anything. There is no accessibility project, audit or certificate that guarantees you will never receive a demand letter. Anyone who sells you that is overselling.
That is also true in every other area of compliance. Security, privacy and employment rules work the same way. The useful question is not “Can I avoid a lawsuit?” but “If a lawsuit arrives, what happens?”
What compliance does for you
1. It makes you a less attractive target
High-volume filers look for barriers that are quick to find and easy to prove: forms without labels, images without text alternatives, checkouts that a keyboard cannot complete. Many of these show up in a simple automated scan. A site that has been audited and fixed, with a current accessibility statement, gives them much less to point at and costs more to pursue. You can still be sued, but you are a far less convenient target.
2. It lets you win on the merits
A Title III case is about specific barriers that kept a specific person from using your site. If those barriers do not exist, the plaintiff has much less to prove, and you have a strong answer to the complaint.
Be careful with the idea that fixing a site after a complaint makes the case go away. Some courts have dismissed website cases as moot once the site was fixed. Others refused, because a company could undo the fixes later, and under state laws that allow damages, a past violation can still cost money. Fixing early, before anyone complains, is what puts you in the strongest position. Your lawyer can tell you how courts in your area treat it.
3. It shows good-faith effort
Courts, opposing lawyers and settlement negotiations all look at what you did and when. These records help:
- An audit report from a qualified third party, dated before any complaint.
- A list of issues found and fixed, with dates.
- A published accessibility statement that says what standard you aim for and how to report a problem.
- A working way for users to contact you, and a record that you respond.
- Ongoing testing, so the site does not slide back after the next redesign.
None of these is a legal shield on its own. Together they tell a very different story than “we installed a widget and hoped for the best.”
4. It can unlock insurance support
Some remediation firms offer indemnification or carry insurance that can help if a client they remediated is sued. If you work with one, ask exactly what it covers, who it protects and what conditions apply, and get it in writing. Check with your own business insurer as well. Do not assume your general liability policy covers ADA website claims. Ask, and get the answer in writing.
What does not protect you
- Overlay widgets. A script that sits on top of your page does not fix your theme, forms or content. UsableNet reports that more 2025 lawsuits targeted sites already using these widgets, and in 2025 the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ordered one overlay vendor to pay $1 million over its compliance claims. Read why accessibility overlays do not make you compliant.
- A passing automated scan. Automated tools catch only part of what WCAG requires. See how to audit WordPress accessibility.
- Ignoring a demand letter, or answering it alone. If you receive one, do not ignore it, do not respond on your own and do not pay before getting advice. Call a lawyer who handles ADA cases, and keep the site’s current state documented.
- A one-time fix. New plugins, pages and redesigns bring new barriers. Compliance is a process.
What to do now
- Get a baseline audit against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, with manual keyboard and screen reader testing, not just a scan.
- Fix the issues at the source in your theme, forms and content, highest-impact first. Checkout, contact forms and navigation come before the footer.
- Publish an accessibility statement and a simple way to report problems.
- Keep the paper trail: the audit, the fix list and the retest results.
- Test on every change so regressions are caught before they go live.
- Ask about insurance and indemnification with whoever does your remediation, and what your own policy covers.
Get your site ready before someone asks
Remediation costs far less than defending a case, and the work is the same work you would need anyway. Our ADA compliance service starts with a WCAG 2.2 Level AA audit, fixes WordPress themes, forms and content at the source, and adds automated accessibility checks to your releases. If you only want the findings, an accessibility audit gives you a prioritized report with a record you can keep. We are a WordPress engineering company, not a law firm, and we do not sell lawsuit insurance, so we will tell you plainly what the work does and does not cover. Contact us to tell us about your site.
Frequently asked questions
- How many ADA website lawsuits were filed in 2025?
- Plaintiffs filed 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in U.S. federal court in 2025, a 27% increase over 2024, according to the law firm Seyfarth Shaw. UsableNet, which also tracks key state courts, counts more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits for the year.
- Will making my website accessible stop me from being sued?
- No. Anyone can file a lawsuit, and no compliance step can promise otherwise. An accessible site gives plaintiffs less to point at, puts you in a stronger position if you are sued, and keeps you from being sued again over the same barriers.
- Are small businesses sued over website accessibility?
- Yes. Title III of the ADA applies to businesses open to the public regardless of size. Lawsuits tend to cite barriers that are easy to find, such as unlabeled forms or images without text alternatives, and those appear on sites of every size.
- Is there an official ADA certificate for websites?
- No. No government agency certifies websites as ADA compliant. A third-party audit report, a record of fixes and a current accessibility statement are useful evidence of good-faith effort, but they are not a legal shield.
- Does an accessibility overlay protect me from lawsuits?
- No. Overlays do not fix the underlying code, and UsableNet reports that a growing number of 2025 lawsuits targeted sites already using these widgets. See our article on why overlays do not make you compliant.