ADA website lawsuit trends in 2025 and 2026 point in one direction: more cases, filed faster, in more venues, against businesses of every size. Federal filings climbed 27% in 2025 to 3,117, and when state-court cases are counted the total passed 5,000 for the year. Website claims now make up roughly 36% of all federal ADA Title III lawsuits, and the pace has held into 2026, with 478 new suits recorded in April alone.1
The litigation is being reshaped at the same time by three forces that weren’t in play a few years ago: a wave of self-represented plaintiffs using generative AI to draft complaints, tighter judicial scrutiny of who has standing to sue, and new federal rules that formally attach a technical accessibility standard to parts of the ADA for the first time.
How Many Lawsuits and How Fast They’re Growing
In 2024, plaintiffs filed about 2,452 website accessibility cases in federal court, with combined state-and-federal filings reaching roughly 4,975. By the end of 2025, federal filings alone hit 3,117 and the combined total topped 5,000. UsableNet’s midyear 2025 projection of 4,187 total filings for the year proved too low.
The growth is not linear across the country. Filings are concentrating in a handful of jurisdictions, and the shift from federal to state court is now the defining structural change in this area of law.
Where the Cases Are Being Filed
Three states dominate federal filings. In 2025, New York led with 1,021 cases, Florida followed with 961, and Illinois came in third at 585. Minnesota and Pennsylvania rounded out the top five at 162 and 137. Texas is emerging as a fourth hotspot.
California is the outlier. Federal filings there fell to four cases in 2025 after federal and state appellate courts held that online-only businesses without a physical location are not “places of public accommodation” under the ADA. Plaintiffs shifted almost entirely to state court, where the Unruh Civil Rights Act provides statutory damages of at least $4,000 per violation. Industry observers call California the costliest state in which to be sued.
The broader pattern is the same everywhere. Nearly eight in ten accessibility lawsuits are now filed in state courts, which tend to be faster, cheaper for plaintiffs, and governed by statutes that authorize monetary damages the federal ADA does not.
Why New York Is a Category of Its Own
New York’s dominance reflects the laws stacked on top of the ADA. Plaintiffs there routinely combine federal ADA claims with the New York State Human Rights Law and the New York City Human Rights Law. The city law is interpreted more broadly than federal law and allows both compensatory and punitive damages. The NYC Commission on Human Rights can impose civil penalties of up to $125,000 per violation, or $250,000 if the conduct is willful. A business does not have to be located in New York or New York City to fall under these laws; serving New York residents through a website is enough.
Who Is Filing the Lawsuits
A small group of plaintiffs and firms account for a large share of the docket. In the first quarter of 2024, roughly 60% of lawsuits were initiated by just five law firms, with Mizrahi Kroub LLP and Stein Saks, PLLC leading in volume. In 2025, about 45% of federal filings targeted businesses that had already been sued before. More than half of the roughly 4,000 federal filings that year were attributed to just 33 individual plaintiffs. In Missouri, one plaintiff represented by one firm filed all 121 website accessibility lawsuits in the state between 2024 and 2025.
AI-Assisted Pro Se Filings
About 40% of federal ADA Title III filings in 2025 were made pro se, without an attorney. A Seyfarth Shaw analysis found a 40% year-over-year increase in pro se filings, and legal analysts attribute much of that jump to generative AI tools that can scan a website for accessibility failures and draft a complaint cheaply. An academic study using stylometric detection estimated that roughly 14% of post-ChatGPT non-form complaints showed markers of AI drafting, and those complaints were disproportionately filed by first-time plaintiffs.
Courts are noticing. Since the second half of 2023, at least 24 pro se litigants in the United States have faced monetary sanctions for AI-generated filings that contained fabricated case citations. In one case, a law firm sought more than $210,000 in fees after a pro se litigant kept submitting fake citations after being warned. The academic research found no evidence that AI-drafted complaints get better outcomes; they are actually more likely to be dismissed at early procedural stages.
Who Gets Sued and What Settlements Cost
E-commerce and retail businesses were the target in about 70% of 2025 filings. Food and beverage businesses accounted for 21%, healthcare entities about 2.5%. There is no small-business exemption under ADA Title III, and small and mid-market businesses are now frequent targets.
Typical settlement demands for small to mid-sized e-commerce companies run from $5,000 to $25,000. Demand letters often ask for $15,000 to $50,000 or more in attorneys’ fees on top of $500 to $5,000 in nominal damages. Cases involving known serial filers sometimes settle for around $8,000, because those attorneys operate on volume. Fighting a case through court-supervised remediation can run $50,000 to $150,000 or more in combined legal, consulting, and monitoring costs. Businesses that settle but do not actually fix the underlying accessibility problems often see two or three additional lawsuits within 18 months, pushing total costs to $30,000 to $60,000.
UsableNet’s 2024 data showed a 95% settlement rate across more than 4,000 resolved cases. The vast majority are dismissed, withdrawn, or resolved in confidential agreements. Few reach trial.
Court Rulings Reshaping the Field
Calcano v. Swarovski
The Second Circuit’s June 2022 decision in Calcano v. Swarovski North America Ltd. is the standing case that changed federal practice. The court affirmed dismissal of five consolidated Braille gift card lawsuits, holding that ADA plaintiffs must plead specific facts showing a genuine, plausible intent to return to a defendant’s business rather than the “cookie cutter” boilerplate that had become the norm. District courts have used Calcano to dismiss cases where plaintiffs could not describe how often they had visited a website, why, or why they would return. Federal judges have openly labeled these filings “nuisance settlements.” The decision helped push plaintiffs from federal to state court in New York, where standing requirements are less strict.
Acheson Hotels v. Laufer
The Supreme Court’s December 2023 decision in Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer was expected to resolve whether ADA “testers,” who search sites for violations with no intent to use the business, have standing to sue. It didn’t. The Court dismissed the case as moot after plaintiff Deborah Laufer voluntarily withdrew her claims following her attorney’s suspension. The 8-1 opinion by Justice Barrett left a circuit split intact: the Second, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits hold that testers lack standing; the Fourth and Eleventh Circuits recognize it. Justice Thomas wrote in concurrence that the Court should have reached the merits, calling Laufer’s withdrawal a “transparent tactic for evading review.”
The Nexus Question
Courts remain split on whether a website without a physical storefront is a “place of public accommodation” under Title III. The Ninth Circuit requires a nexus between a website and a physical location. The First, Second, and Seventh Circuits have signaled that Title III may cover online-only businesses. The Third and Sixth Circuits limit coverage to sites with a physical nexus. In the Southern District of New York, a chief judge ruled in Mejia v. High Brew Coffee, Inc. that standalone websites are not places of public accommodation, pushing plaintiffs toward state courts. The patchwork is unlikely to be resolved without Supreme Court intervention or new federal legislation.
DOJ Enforcement Moves
United States v. Uber Technologies
The Department of Justice sued Uber on September 11, 2025, in the Northern District of California, alleging Title III violations for routinely denying rides to passengers who use service animals or mobility devices, charging cancellation and cleaning fees to riders who were denied service, and refusing reasonable policy modifications such as letting passengers with mobility disabilities sit in the front seat. The DOJ is seeking $125 million in damages for affected riders, a civil penalty, and a court order requiring policy overhaul and ADA training.
Uber moved to dismiss, arguing it is a technology company rather than a transportation service. On March 5, 2026, the court denied the motion, finding Uber exercises enough control over vehicle specifications, driver qualifications, pricing, and ride experience to qualify as a transportation system under the ADA. The court noted that “all courts that have considered this issue have soundly rejected” the technology-company defense. The case is ongoing.
The Fashion Nova Intervention
On February 2, 2026, the DOJ filed a Statement of Interest opposing a proposed class settlement in Alcazar v. Fashion Nova Inc. in the Northern District of California. The case alleged Fashion Nova’s site was inaccessible to blind users. The proposed deal would have paid class members roughly $2.43 million and attorneys over $2.52 million, while providing what the DOJ called “generic” injunctive relief with no enforcement mechanism. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said “Congress intended the Department and Courts to be skeptical of settlements that instead enrich private counsel.” The filing signals that DOJ will scrutinize the quality of private ADA settlements, not just bring its own cases.
New Federal Rules and Pending Legislation
Title II Rule for State and Local Governments
In April 2024, the DOJ published a final rule requiring state and local government entities to make web content and mobile apps comply with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. This was the first time a specific technical standard has been formally mandated under the ADA. Original deadlines were April 24, 2026, for entities serving 50,000 or more people and April 26, 2027, for smaller entities. In April 2026, DOJ extended each by a year, to April 26, 2027, and April 26, 2028. The rule does not apply to private businesses under Title III.
HHS Section 504 Rule for Healthcare
A separate rule from the Department of Health and Human Services, finalized in May 2024 under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, requires healthcare entities receiving federal funding to make websites, mobile apps, and medical kiosks accessible to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. It covers hospitals, clinics, telehealth platforms, appointment schedulers, and billing portals. Deadlines have been extended to May 11, 2027, for entities with 15 or more employees and May 10, 2028, for smaller ones. Noncompliance can trigger loss of federal funding, HHS Office for Civil Rights investigations, or DOJ referral. The healthcare sector currently accounts for only about 2.5% of accessibility lawsuits, but industry observers expect the rule to raise enforcement risk.
Pending Legislation
Two bills are moving through the 119th Congress. H.R. 3417, the Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act of 2025, introduced by Representatives Pete Sessions and Steny Hoyer, would confirm that digital spaces are covered under ADA Title III regardless of whether a business has a physical location, and would direct DOJ and EEOC to develop enforceable technical standards. It has been referred to the House Committees on Education and Workforce and the Judiciary.
H.R. 6453, the ADA 30 Days to Comply Act, sponsored by Representatives Michael Lawler and Lou Correa, goes the other direction. It would require plaintiffs to give businesses advance notice and a chance to fix accessibility problems before suing, demand specific details rather than boilerplate, show they were actually denied access, and disclose whether they requested assistance. It would also bar attorneys’ fees. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed the bill in March 2026.
Overlays and the accessiBe Settlement
Automated accessibility “overlays” or “widgets,” sold by companies like accessiBe, UserWay, and AudioEye, have been marketed as quick fixes. They have not provided legal protection. UsableNet’s data shows lawsuits against companies using these tools continued at 85 to 132 cases per month through the first half of 2025. About 25% of all 2024 lawsuits targeted companies that had installed overlay widgets, and plaintiffs increasingly cite the overlays themselves as barriers to accessibility.
In January 2025, the FTC announced a $1 million settlement with accessiBe after alleging the company falsely claimed its AI-powered plug-in could make “any website” fully compliant with WCAG standards. The FTC also found accessiBe disguised paid content as impartial third-party reviews. The order, approved by a unanimous 5-0 Commission vote in April 2025, prohibits compliance claims without adequate evidence and requires disclosure of financial relationships with endorsers. Future violations carry penalties of up to $51,744 each. Demand letters now routinely argue that installing an overlay does not amount to good-faith compliance.
What Standard Businesses Are Actually Measured Against
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, published by the World Wide Web Consortium, are the reference point in virtually every settlement in this space. The version most commonly cited is WCAG 2.1 Level AA; the current version is WCAG 2.2. The DOJ has never formally adopted WCAG as a binding standard for private businesses under Title III. It has been cited in DOJ consent decrees and by federal courts, but for private companies it remains a voluntary benchmark used to reduce litigation risk. The 2024 Title II rule mandated WCAG 2.1 AA for government entities, and analysts have flagged it as a possible template for a future Title III rule, though none has been proposed.
Automated scanning tools catch only about 30% of actual WCAG violations, missing issues like keyboard navigation and focus management. Standard guidance is to combine automated screening with manual audits and testing by people with disabilities, and to keep formal documentation of testing, remediation, and employee training in case of a lawsuit.
If You Serve EU Customers
The European Accessibility Act began enforcement on June 28, 2025. It applies to companies based outside the EU that offer products or services to EU-based customers, including e-commerce, banking, and digital services. It requires compliance with EN 301 549, which incorporates WCAG 2.1 with additional hardware and software requirements, and mandates published accessibility statements. Enforcement is handled by national authorities in each member state, which can impose fines or suspend business operations. ADA compliance does not automatically satisfy the EAA. Companies operating in both markets face two separate sets of obligations.