Mar 5, 2026
Owners of a small Florida flower shop in Orlando were blindsided when they received a letter informing them they were being sued for violating accessibility requirements on their website.
It was late 2024, just five days before Christmas, when Leaf & Blossom, Co. owner Ajeeta Khanna says she received the notice, according to WFTV Action 9 (1). Khanna runs the shop with her mother, Kitty. She told the news outlet that the lawsuit alleged their website wasn’t in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
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“We’re just literally five people. We’re not like fifty employees in, you know, a huge building or anything,” Khanna told Action 9. Their website is mainly run by a third party, so they thought it was compliant. That’s why, at first, Khanna thought the letter was a scam.
It wasn’t. And it cost them more than $7,000 in legal fees and settlement payments — which Khanna says their attorney told them would be cheaper than fighting the lawsuit in court.
This is part of a much broader surge in ADA-related lawsuits across the country. Over the past four years, an investigation by WFTV and other Cox Media Group stations uncovered more than 15,000 website-accessibility lawsuits nationwide.
An increasing trigger for litigation
Small business owners may assume that ADA lawsuits target only large companies or physical accessibility issues — such as ramps or restrooms — but digital accessibility is increasingly a trigger for litigation.
Nearly one in five Americans has a disability, according to the Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability (EARN). It’s even higher for Americans aged 65-plus, with one in eight living with a disability (2).
In its guidance on digital assessability, ADA.gov notes that “just as physical barriers like steps can prevent some people with disabilities from entering a building,” design of a website “can create unnecessary barriers that make it difficult or impossible for people with disabilities” to use them (3).
Examples given include poor color contrast (for those with limited vision), lack of text alternatives on images (for those who are blind) and missing captions on videos (for people with hearing disabilities). Other examples include assistive technologies like screen readers or voice input tools.
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Website-accessibility lawsuits can allege that digital barriers on websites and mobile apps prevent users from navigating them effectively.
A report by EcomBack (4) showed that 2,014 website-accessibility lawsuits were filed in the first half of 2025 across all states — a jump of 37% from the same period in 2024. The agency, which specializes in online accessibility, said the increase reflects “intensified scrutiny of digital compliance.”
New York, Florida and California are hot spots for this type of litigation, according to the report, while Illinois is emerging “as a new litigation hub.” However, the EcomBack report also showed a “persistent pattern in ADA website litigation,” with a small number of law firms and plaintiffs driving the vast majority of cases.
However, of the 2,014 total lawsuits filed during the first half of 2025, “just 16 firms were responsible for over 90% of the cases — highlighting the high concentration and repeat behavior that continues to define this space,” wrote report authors.
They also noted that “demand letters are quietly increasing — often used to pressure businesses into quick settlements,” a form of “shadow litigation” that adds significant risk beyond the lawsuits included in the report.
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This may explain what happened to Khanna, who chose to settle out of court. With a growing number of claims — and demand letters — based on website accessibility, many more businesses may be exposed to legal risks.
Any business with a website — which is most businesses these days — could be a target. Settlements and compliance costs can add up and, for a small business, it could squeeze already-thin margins.
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Improving your digital accessibility
ADA compliance now extends beyond bricks-and-mortar access to include digital accessibility. If you’ve outsourced your website to a third party (as many businesses do), then you may assume everything on your site is compliant.
“With the growing number of ADA lawsuits, it’s essential for business owners to prioritize compliance — not only to mitigate legal risks but also to create a more equitable online presence,” writes EcomBank founder Nayan Padrai for Forbes (5).
But there are proactive steps that business owners can take to improve digital accessibility. Adopting Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a set of standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to ensure digital content is accessible to people with disabilities, is a good place to start.
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W3C provides plenty of resources (6), including an accessibility fundamentals overview for those just getting started with accessibility and tips to make your user interface design and visual design more accessible to people with disabilities.
If you’ve hired a third party to design and/or manage your website, make sure they adhere to WCAG 2.1/2.2 standards and include those requirements in your contract. You can also run accessibility audits with a variety of automated tools to test assistive technologies. That way, you can catch (and fix) potential issues earlier on, reducing your legal risk.
You may want to consult with an ADA expert. Since the WCAG guidelines aren’t codified, “for many businesses it’s hard to know with certainty which standards are applicable to them, whether their websites meet legal requirements, and what specific steps they should take to comply with the laws,” writes accessibility advocate Alisa Smith for AudioEye (7).
Khanna wants to see federal legislation passed that clarifies these requirements — and gives them a grace period to fix any issues (1).
In the meantime, however, other business owners can take steps to comply with ADA guidelines — so they can reduce their risk of having to choose between costly settlements and expensive litigation.
Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
WFTV Action 9 (1); Employer Assistance and Resource Network on Disability (2); ADA.gov (3); EcomBack (4); Forbes (5); World Wide Web Consortium (6); AudioEye (7)
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Vawn Himmelsbach is a veteran journalist who has been covering tech, business, finance and travel for the past three decades. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Metro News, Canadian Geographic, Zoomer, CAA Magazine, Travelweek, Explore Magazine, Flare and Consumer Reports, to name a few.
