Website accessibility lawsuit statistics: filings, failures and trends

Website accessibility lawsuit statistics show a rebound after two quieter years. Seyfarth Shaw, which tracks ADA Title III filings through its ADA Title III blog, counted 3,117 website accessibility lawsuits in federal court in 2025, a 27% increase over 2024's 2,452. Website cases accounted for 36% of all 8,667 ADA Title III federal lawsuits that year, up from 28% of 8,800 in 2024. Seyfarth attributes much of the increase to new plaintiffs' attorneys entering this area.

This report compiles Seyfarth's federal filing counts, WebAIM's annual accessibility scan of the top one million home pages, UsableNet's 2025 midyear lawsuit report and the U.S. Department of Justice's guidance on web accessibility. It covers what is being filed, where, and which website problems are most common. It is general information, not legal advice.

Around 2,500 to 3,300 a year in federal court since 2018, according to Seyfarth's counts. Filings jumped 177% from 2017 to 2018, rose steadily to a peak of 3,255 in 2022, fell in 2023 and 2024, then climbed back to 3,117 in 2025. Seyfarth notes these are cases it could identify through a diligent search, so the true number may be somewhat higher.

These counts cover federal courts only. Lawsuits filed in state courts and demand letters that settle before any filing are not included, so total legal activity over website accessibility is larger than the federal figures.

Mostly in New York, Florida and Illinois. In Seyfarth's 2025 state breakdown, New York federal courts saw 1,021 website accessibility cases, Florida 961 and Illinois 585, followed by Minnesota (162) and Pennsylvania (137). Florida's count roughly doubled from 470 in 2024. California had only four federal website cases in 2025, though Seyfarth's federal counts do not capture cases filed in California state courts.

Where a lawsuit is filed is not the same as where the business is. A website can be accessed from anywhere, and plaintiffs file where the law and courts are favorable to them. A dental practice in South Carolina or a salon group in Georgia can be named in a New York or Florida case if its site is reachable there.

Across all ADA Title III federal lawsuits (website and physical location cases together), Seyfarth counted 3,252 in California, 1,823 in Florida and 1,471 in New York in 2025. Total Title III filings have stayed between roughly 8,200 and 8,800 a year since 2022, below the 2021 peak of 11,452.

Online retailers most of all, then restaurants and healthcare, and often smaller companies. UsableNet, which sells accessibility software and tracks lawsuits, reported 2,019 digital accessibility lawsuits in the first half of 2025 and projected a 20% increase for the year. It found ecommerce businesses were the target in 69% of cases, followed by food service and healthcare. It also reported that 36% of companies sued in 2025 had more than $25 million in annual revenue, which means most of the businesses named were smaller than that.

For service businesses, the healthcare finding stands out. Medical and dental practices, med spas, physical therapy clinics and other providers rely on online booking, intake forms and patient portals, which are exactly the kinds of interactive features where accessibility barriers show up. Restaurants, hotels and event venues share the same exposure through menus, reservations and booking widgets.

Nearly all of them. WebAIM's 2026 Million report, which runs automated tests on the home pages of the top one million websites, found detectable WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of home pages, with an average of 56.1 errors per page. That is up from 94.8% of pages and 51 errors per page in the 2025 report. Automated tools catch only some accessibility issues, so the real failure rate is at least this high.

The same six types of errors have topped WebAIM's list for years. They matter for lawsuit risk because plaintiffs' testers and scanning tools find these first.

Each of these maps to something a customer is trying to do on a service business site. Low contrast makes service descriptions and prices hard to read for people with low vision. Missing labels mean a screen reader announces "edit text" instead of "Phone number" on a booking or intake form. Empty links and buttons are often the phone icon, the menu button or the social icons in a header, which a screen reader user hears as "link" with no clue where it goes. These are the parts of a site that turn a visitor into an appointment, so fixing them helps every visitor.

The Department of Justice says it does for businesses open to the public. Its March 2022 web accessibility guidance states that the department has consistently taken the position that the ADA's requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web. Title III public accommodations include medical offices, law firms, salons, hotels, restaurants and repair shops.

There is still no federal regulation setting a technical standard for private business websites. The DOJ points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Section 508 standards as helpful guidance. In practice, WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at Level AA is the benchmark used in most settlements and remediation plans.

The pattern in the data is consistent: lawsuits are frequent, filed in a few favorable states against businesses anywhere, and built on common, detectable problems. The most useful response is to fix the common problems first and keep them fixed. Monvell's Development work builds sites to WCAG 2.1 Level AA from the start and includes accessibility checks in ongoing website maintenance, so new pages and forms do not reintroduce old errors.

• Run a free automated check (WebAIM's WAVE tool, Google Lighthouse or axe) on your home page, booking page and contact form, and fix every error it reports.
• Raise text contrast. Low-contrast text was the top failure on 83.9% of home pages in WebAIM's 2026 report, and it is usually a design token change.
• Write alternative text for every meaningful image and mark decorative images as decorative.
• Label every form field, including booking, intake and quote forms. Placeholder text inside the box does not count as a label.
• Give every link and button a readable name, especially icon-only buttons like menus, phone icons and social links.
• Test the booking or intake flow with a keyboard only. If you cannot complete it without a mouse, a screen reader user likely cannot either.
• Check third-party widgets (scheduling, chat, payment, reviews) and ask vendors for their accessibility documentation, since the business that owns the site is the one a lawsuit names.
• Publish an accessibility statement with a way for visitors to report problems, and respond when they do.

Federal filing counts come from Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III blog posts of February and March 2026, which count lawsuits identifiable in federal court records. We computed the year-over-year percentages in the table from Seyfarth's published counts and rounded them. WebAIM's figures come from its 2025 and 2026 Million reports, based on automated scans run each February. UsableNet's figures come from its August 2025 midyear report press release; UsableNet sells accessibility services and does not publish its full counting method in that release. DOJ guidance is quoted from ADA.gov.

Automated scans and lawsuit counts show risk and common problems. They do not tell you whether a specific site meets the law, which depends on the site, the business and the court. For legal questions, talk with an attorney.