Just like last month, there was nothing to report. Then, in the third week of August, a few cases started popping up.
Standing in the Southern District is a Roll of the Dice
Two Southern District of New York cases this month show how unpredictable web accessibility litigation can be. In Riley v. Baggu Corp., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150080 (S.D.N.Y. 2025), the court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss. Even though Amanie Riley was a serial plaintiff, the court found that she provided enough details—including when she visited the site, what she tried to buy (a lunch bag for picnics), the exact accessibility barriers that blocked her, and why she intended to return (affordable, stylish bags and free shipping).
By contrast, in Wahab v. Evolutions Hair Salon, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161046 (S.D.N.Y. 2025), the court took a much more restrictive view and granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss in a case brought by serial plaintiff Angela Wahab. In this case, the plaintiff alleged that tried to purchase a specific product “on several occasions, and gave some examples of the types of barriers that impeded her access.
Looking over both cases side by side, the distinctions are razor thin—if not invisible. They both involved serial plaintiffs. They both included a laundry list of various accessibility issues identified as barriers. The only clear difference is that Ms. Riley identified exactly when she encountered the barriers while Ms. Wahab identified a range of dates when she encountered her barriers. This isn’t much of a distinction. Last month, I mentioned that a plaintiff’s success in the Eastern District largely depends on what judge a plaintiff ends up before. The Southern District is just as much of a roll of the dice.
Nexus Still Required in Third Circuit
In Herrera v. TJX Co. Inc., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168188 (D.N.J. 2025), the court once again confirmed the Third Circuit’s narrow view of ADA website claims: there is no standalone claim unless the site is sufficiently tied—or has a “nexus”—to a brick-and-mortar location. Carlos Herrera, a blind shopper, alleged that TJX’s website blocked him from accessing information about a Paramus store he visited. TJX argued that the site never contained the information that Herrera claimed (and which created the nexus to the store).
Rather than decide the issue at the pleading stage, the court denied the motion to dismiss for now and left the nexus question for summary judgment. The court noted that resolving whether the website truly connected to the Paramus store might require looking at the site as it existed at the time of Herrera’s visits—potentially through discovery tools like the Wayback Machine.
This decision shouldn’t come as a surprise. One year ago, we mentioned the Herrera v. Humana, Inc. (D.N.J. 2024) decision, where the court dismissed a similar website-only claim for lack of nexus. Apart from the decision in Douglass v. Blendjet back in 2022 from the Western District of Pennsylvania, the Third Circuit has pretty uniformly stuck with the nexus requirement.
Federal versus State Court in California
Plaintiffs sure seem to want to avoid federal court in California. Last month, we talked about Castillo v. Tommy Bahama, where Rebecca Castillo ultimately was able to find her way back to California state court. This month, in Sandoval v. Ace Hardware Corporation, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168165 (C.D. Cal. 2025), Michael Sandoval wasn’t so “lucky” and had to stay in federal court.
Procedurally, both cases started out the same way.
- Plaintiff files a lawsuit in California state court alleging that a barrier on a website violates both California’s Unruh Act and the ADA,
- Defendant removes the case to federal court, and
- Plaintiff then drops the ADA claim and tries to remove the case back to California state court. Plaintiff also tries to limit possible damages to less than $75,000, to avoid “diversity jurisdiction” involving an out-of-state defendant.
So why did the court deny Mr. Sandoval’s request to move his case back to state court? While the plaintiff can try to limit damages in the complaint to under $75,000? Because the plaintiff specified an “unspecified” number of visits to the website and each “violation” would automatically be entitled to $4,000 under the Unruh Act. In addition, the additional costs of compliance (e.g., making the defendant’s website accessible) could well exceed $75,000. This meant that diversity jurisdiction was satisfied and the court did not have to remove the case back to state court.
The judge in this case seemed to go to extra lengths to keep Mr. Sandoval in his courtroom. Maybe there’s a reason why plaintiffs like to stay in state court in California?
What's Going on in the Eighth Circuit?
When we think about web accessibility litigation, three places come to mind: Florida, New York, and California. Most of us don't put Missouri at the top of that list. In fact, in the five years of running this blog, I think I've only reported on two cases coming out of the Eighth Circuit, which includes a huge section in the middle of the country (Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota).
But my good friend and colleague Jack McElaney at Microassist told me over the weekend that something clearly is going on. According to a recent article, over 200 businesses in Missouri and Minnesota have been targeted with web accessibility lawsuits over the last year. According to another article, a lot of the litigation in Missouri, which has followed a sue-and-quickly-settle pattern has been brought by attorney Kevin Puckett. Web accessibility litigation has also been getting attention on local news.
Given the dearth of case law coming out of the Eighth Circuit, I took a moment to look under the hood and see what cases were being filed in the Eighth Circuit. I was surprised to find that there appears to be a lot more than 200 web accessibility cases filed there. Also, while Mr. Puckett's Missouri cases are drawing a lot of attention, he is not the first or most active litigation in the Circuit. Looking through Lexis, I found that web accessibility litigation in the Eighth Circuit goes at least as far back as Lily Poss v. Eagle Lake Family Dentistry (D. Minn. 2013), in which a state court web accessibility case was removed to federal court. That case was brought by Paul Hansmeier from Minneapolis. Looking over the last 100 cases, Minneapolis is a much more popular venue for web accessibility. Breaking down the numbers for the last 100 web accessibility cases filed in the Eighth Circuit shows:
- 39 cases brought in either the Western District or Eastern District of Missouri. All of these cases were brought by plaintiff Robert Glen Myers and represented by attorney Kevin Wayne Puckett from Kansas City.
- 61 cases brought in the District of Minnesota, of which 55 cases were brought by plaintiff Julie Dalton and five cases were brought by plaintiff Clarence Frost. Both Ms. Dalton and Mr. Frost are represented by the law firm Throndset Michenfelder, LLC from Minneapolis.
What About Other Circuits?
One quick way to compare circuits is to just look at the numbers that Lexis reports for "Briefs, Pleadings, and Motions" across different circuits. When I run my basic web accessibility search,
((access! /5 web!) or (inaccess! /5 web!)) and americans /4 disabilities
And look under "Briefs, Pleadings, and Motions," the numbers across the different circuits breaks down as
- 2nd Circuit (25,434)
- 11th Circuit (12,,841)
- 9th Circuit (10,708)
- 3rd Circuit (4,041)
- 7th Circuit (2,157)
- 4th Circuit (1,116)
- 5th Circuit (1,100)
- 1st Circuit (946)
- 6th Circuit (991)
- 8th Circuit (867)
- 10th Circuit (703)
Wikipedia's breakdown of the U.S. federal courts of appeal provides a useful map for where you are in the circuits. Now it's important to emphasize that these numbers are NOT how many web accessibility complaints are filed. A complaint, which starts the litigation process, is just one type of "pleading." The numbers above includes other kinds of pleadings (e.g., the defendant's answers), motions (where a party asks the court to do something during litigation), and briefs (the documents that support a party's motions). When litigants go crazy with filing motions, a single case can spike the numbers in their jurisdiction. That tends to not happen in web accessibility litigation so the numbers above are probably a fairly accurate comparison of how many web accessibility cases get filed in the different circuits.
While the top three Circuits for web accessibility litigation aren't a surprise (the Second Circuit includes New York, the Eleventh Circuit includes Florida, and the Ninth Circuit includes California). What is a surprise to me is that the Third, Seventh, and Fourth Circuits, which quietly make up a lot of cases. In the Third Circuit, the Western District of Pennsylvania is surprisingly the most popular venue. In the Seventh Circuit, it shouldn't be a surprise that the most popular court for web accessibility cases is the District of Illinois (where Chicago is located). The Fourth Circuit is the most evenly distributed circuit with a roughly even number of filings between Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia.
Bill Tracker
Not surprisingly, there hasn't been any movement on state legislation over the last few weeks of summer.
| State | Bill | Description | Latest Update |
|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | HR 3417 | The bipartisan Websites and Software Applications Accessibility Act of 2025 creates clear accessibility standards for private and public section digital platforms. May 2025 Legal Update | Introduced on May 14, 2025. |
| Colorado | HB 25-1152 | Requires insertion of new clause holding vendors liable for inaccessible IT sold to public schools | Signed by governor on May 24, 2025. |
| New Mexico | HB 120 | Requires WCAG 2.1 AA for all state agency websites by April 1, 2026 and creates new Office of Accessibility. February 2025 Legal Update; January 2025 Legal Update | HB 120 passed the final House vote 60-3 on March 18 and passed the Senate vote 40-0 on March 20, 2025, but was vetoed by the governor on the same day. As the legislature adjourned on March 22, I think we can call this bill dead. |
| New Jersey | S 1016 | Requires state agencies to meet WCAG A/AA and proposes that the state Chief Technology Officer create a certification process for state agency websites. February-March 2024 Legal Update. | Passed Senate March 18, 2024 and referred to committee. The current two-year session ends of January 13, 2026. |
| Pennsylvania | HB 485 | Requires public entities to create a plan for meeting WCAG by July 1, 2028. February 2025 Legal Update | Introduced February 4, 2025. The current two-year session ends on November 30, 2026. |
| Virginia | HB 2541 | Requires vendors to provide a VPAT/ACR and for vendors to submit a plan for closing any gaps. January 2025 Legal Update. | Approved by governor on March 24, 2025. Now chaptered into Virginia Code |
Disclaimer
Nothing in this post should be interpreted as legal advice or as forming an attorney-client relationship. It is offered for educational purposes only. You should always contact a qualified attorney in your area to discuss your legal rights and responsibilities.
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