Federal Judge in New York Rules that an Online-Only Website is Not a Place of Public Accommodation Under Title III of the ADA

On September 30, 2024, Chief Judge Laura Swain of the Southern District of New York, issued a ruling that a standalone website is not a place of public accommodation under Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).

Background

In Mejia v. High Brew Coffee, Inc., the plaintiff, a legally blind individual, filed a lawsuit against the defendant, which sells coffee through an online-only website, alleging violations of Title III of the ADA and the New York City Human Rights Law. 

The plaintiff claimed that he attempted to purchase coffee on the defendant's website but was unsuccessful because the website's coding rendered his screen-reading software unusable. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, which the Southern District of New York granted.

Places of Public Accommodation

Title III of the ADA states that "[n]o individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation."

The ADA does not define the term "place of public accommodation." Rather, it provides that private entities are considered public accommodations if their operations affect commerce and they fall within one of the 12 listed categories of enterprises.

Within the 12 categories of enterprises, there are 50 examples of places of public accommodations, including restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, stadiums, and schools. See 42 U.S.C.A. §12181(7).

Case Analysis

The issue presented in this case was whether a website, absent a connection to a physical location, constitutes a place of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA.

While the Second Circuit has not addressed this issue, the majority of circuit courts, including the Third, Sixth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, have found that a website constitutes a place of public accommodation only if it is connected to a physical location. The minority position adopted by the First and Seventh Circuits has found that a website can be a place of public accommodation, and no physical location is required.

Judge Swain declined to follow other district courts in the Second Circuit, which applied the decision in Pallozzi v. Allstate Life Ins. Co., to conclude that a standalone website qualifies as a place of public accommodation under the ADA. Judge Swain differentiated the facts of this case from Pallozzi insofar as the issue raised in Pallozzi was not whether a standalone website constituted a place of accommodation but rather whether goods and services sold from a place of public accommodation were subject to the ADA.

In the absence of Second Circuit precedent, Judge Swain interpreted the text and structure of the statute. Judge Swain noted that in the antidiscrimination context, the phrase "place of public accommodation" has long referred to businesses with "public-facing physical facilities," which is consistent with the Judge's review of the 50 entities listed in the ADA.

Judge Swain also applied the statutory principle of ejusdem generis (meaning that general words in a statute are limited by specific words that preceded them) to conclude that the "general clauses in section 12181(7) such as 'any other service establishment' should be confined to public-facing physical locations."

Further, Judge Swain found that Congress did not address businesses without a physical location, such as mail-order merchandise and television shopping channels, despite these business models existing at the time the statute was written.

Accordingly, Judge Swain held that it should not be inferred that Congress intended to include websites, a newly developed business model, as a place of public accommodation when the statute excluded analogous business models. Therefore, the court ruled that a standalone website is not a place of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA.

Conclusion

In 2022, 69 percent of the 2,387 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in New York. In 2023, that number rose in New York to 73 percent of the 2,281 website accessibility lawsuits filed in New York.

While this case limits the liability of online-only businesses under the ADA, further guidance from the Second Circuit may affect this decision. In the interim, there will likely be an increase in website accessibility lawsuits in New York State courts, as New York laws are broader and provide more protections to disabled individuals than the ADA.