On Monday, October 7, 2019, the Supreme Court rejected a petition from Domino’s to hear whether the pizza chain’s website and mobile app are required to be accessible to people with disabilities, thus leaving in place the ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that Domino’s must abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The lawsuit was brought by Guillermo Robles, a blind man who alleges that he was unable to order food from the company’s website or mobile app because neither was fully accessible with screen-reading software, a type of software utilized by visually impaired people to browse the web and use apps on their computers and phones. The Ninth Circuit Court ruled that since Domino’s is “a place of public accommodation,” it’s required under the law to provide aids and services to make visual materials accessible – including the restaurant’s website and mobile app. In response, Domino’s had asked the Supreme Court to rule that ADA didn’t apply, claiming the legal statute applies to physical locations only and not to these digital platforms. Because the 1990 law pre-dated the digital world as we now know it, it did not include firm guidelines relating to websites – nor has it been updated to provide that direction to businesses.
The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case is a giant leap in the right direction for millions of people with disabilities who require accessibility in order to fully participate in today’s modern world and economy. Many businesses, however, may be wondering what that means for them.
ADA Compliance has been a hot topic for financial institutions for quite some time now, and if this recent decision seems to add a degree of urgency to your thinking about your FI’s website, well … it should. If you have not yet done so, now is the time to do a full audit of your website for ADA compliance and look ahead at creating a plan to address any findings – whether it’s retrofitting your existing site to meet the generally accepted requirements or building a new site that complies.
More and more, your digital channels are being utilized as a way to interact with your customers, and a way for them to use your services, and as such, the accessibility of those tools should be as high priority as the accessibility of your physical branch locations.
Read more about this case here.