Can I come in? Websites – like businesses – must be accessible to all, recent litigation contends

Kevin Puckett: Enforcement creates accountability and timetable for remediation.

Greg Tull: Requirements for government websites give an idea of what businesses should do.

Maggie Rollwagen: Accessibility considerations extend to all areas of disability.

Maranda Provance: It's best to get an expert's guidance for accessible web design.

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Springfield restaurant Aviary Cafe and Creperie LLC is being sued for allegedly having a website that is inaccessible to blind or partially sighted people.

Hamilton resident Robert Glen Myers, who is blind, filed the lawsuit Sept. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, St. Joseph Division. In the suit, Myers is seeking injunctive relief, meaning he is calling for the cafe to improve the accessibility of its website, rather than seeking monetary damages.

Aviary did not respond to requests for comment on the pending litigation by press time.

But Aviary is not alone in being targeted by Myers. A search of plaintiffs within the online federal courts system produces more than 100 similar results for Myers. Among other defendants are Springfield staples like Mexican Villa Food Products Inc., sued in May and dismissed by Myers two months later, and Andy’s Frozen Custard Stores LLC, sued in December 2024 and dismissed by Myers in May 2025. In both of those cases, the settlement stipulated each party would pay its own costs and fees.

Other businesses sued by Myers include well-known Missouri businesses like Lambert’s Cafe III Inc. and Imo’s Franchising Inc., professional soccer team St. Louis Ambush LC and Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The Kauffman Center suit appears to be the first web accessibility case by Myers, filed in August 2024.

Reached by email, Myers’ Kansas City-based attorney, Kevin W. Puckett, managing partner of ADA Legal Team LLC, outlined some of the barriers faced by people with disabilities, though he declined to comment on any active litigation.

“For many blind users, a website is only as accessible as its underlying code,” he said.

Puckett outlined some common barriers for blind users, such as images without alternative text, forms without proper labels, buttons that aren’t keyboard-navigable, poor color contrast, auto-playing elements and pop-ups or overlays that trap focus.

“The core principle is simple: Build accessibility into the site itself (UX) so that a person using a keyboard, a screen reader, magnification, captions or other assistive tech can complete the same tasks with comparative ease and dignity,” he said.

Puckett said most businesses want to do the right thing once they understand the gaps presented by their websites.

“Litigation pressure often converts ‘We’ll get to it’ into ‘We did it,’” he said.

“Voluntary remediation is always preferred. Enforcement is the backstop that ensures people with disabilities can participate online just like everyone else.”

Asked about how a plaintiff typically pays for an accessibility lawsuit, Puckett said ADA cases against public accommodations entitle them to two types of damages, if successful: injunctive relief – namely, forcing the entity in question to correct the barriers the plaintiff faces – and attorneys’ fees and court costs.

Best practices
More than 4,000 digital accessibility lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts in 2024, according to an annual report from website development company Accessibility.Works.

Greg Tull, marketing director for e-commerce agency Classy Llama Studios LLC, said Americans with Disabilities Act Title III covers places of public accommodation – most brick-and-mortar businesses that are open to the public. He added that the U.S. Department of Justice has not issued a binding web standard related to Title III, but courts and the DOJ expect businesses to provide equal access to goods and services online. Most settlements point to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, Level AA, as a guideline, he said.

Tull said there is a binding rule for government websites, and it’s Title II: WCAG 2.1, Level AA.

“Even though that rule doesn’t apply to private businesses, it’s the clearest signal of what the DOJ views as accessible,” Tull said.

Maggie Rollwagen, president and CEO of Abilities First, an organization that provides services to people with developmental disabilities, said accessibility considerations extend beyond people who are blind or partially sighted.

“Many people first think of vision, but accessibility is a much broader issue,” she said. “A fully accessible website accounts for a wide range of disabilities and function needs.”

For example, she said, to accommodate people who are deaf and hard of hearing, web developers should work toward providing captioning, transcripts and visual equivalents for all audio content.

Mobility and motor coordination impairments that lead to limited use of the hands require different accommodations, she said, citing more forgiving time limits, larger clickable areas or the ability to navigate a site entirely by keyboard without the use of a mouse.

People with cognitive and learning disabilities may require instructions in multiple formats and the avoidance of unnecessary complexity, Rollwagen said.

“Clear is kind,” she said. “Clear language is accessible.”

To accommodate those with neurological disabilities, a website should avoid flashing or strobing, which can cause seizures, Rollwagen added.

Accessibility considerations should also extend to use beyond the website, she said, with businesses offering alternatives beyond phone calls for contact.

“There are a lot of ways to go above and beyond,” she said. “A lot of older adults also experience functional needs. Access is about designing for all users and working toward continuous improvement.”

Maranda Provance, director of engineering at website, marketing and branding firm Mostly Serious LLC, said that while the government has not offered concrete, specific guidelines, lawsuits are leading the way.

“Businesses that are subject to Title III of the ADA are basically available to be sued and likely to lose if they don’t follow accessibility best practices,” she said.

Provance said the de facto standard is WCAG 2.1, including both Levels A and AA.

“Those guidelines are pretty robust,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to really follow all of those rules. You kind of need an expert’s guidance.”

Provance cautioned against the use of overlays or widgets – scripts of code that some web development services provide to be dropped in as an effort to meet accessibility standards.

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” she said. “Lawsuits are somewhat mixed in terms of whether a widget or an overlay can do the job. Previously, it was trending to where no, they couldn’t. Sometimes companies are maybe even targeted for having that overlay. It’s not quite as simple as just use a widget and you remove all your risk.”

Provance said the best step a company can take to sidestep risk is to work with a company that builds websites professionally and that understands the law. But she cautioned that the legal landscape has not been clear, and some website builders have been slow to implement standards.

“I suspect with physical buildings, it’s fairly rare for a construction company not to know about ADA requirements and not to try to build those in,” she said. “We’re still kind of at the beginning of this journey in the digital landscape.

“Not every agency knows everything they need to know.”

For those smaller companies without a budget for professional web development, that suggestion might be difficult, she said. In these cases, a free online accessibility checker could provide some help. Provance suggested AccessibilityChecker.org as one option.

Systematic exclusion
Myers – a blind service veteran – declined to comment on his lawsuit against Aviary Cafe. In an email, he said that he has found media coverage regarding his civil rights cases to be disappointing because of what is typically left out.

“The reporting has failed to meaningfully include the perspective of the very community these lawsuits are meant to protect,” he said. “Instead, they have portrayed me and the attorneys I hire as part of some profit-driven scheme. That narrative is not only false – it’s offensive.”

Myers said he pursues his advocacy because blind Americans – and particularly his fellow blind veterans – are being systematically excluded from today’s digital world.

“Every website we make accessible is one fewer barrier for someone trying to apply for a job, order dinner, access health care or simply live with dignity,” he said.

He added that with each case, every company is given detailed audits, reports and user-journey video documentation prepared by an accessibility expert – not just automated scans. Additionally, he said, every company received prior written notice and a meaningful opportunity to fix its website, though he did not state how long a business had between notification and litigation.

“Only those companies that refused to take action after being notified were sued,” he said. “It is their inaction, not my enforcement, that perpetuates digital discrimination.”

Myers said the work he is doing is important.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act was not passed as a suggestion,” he said. “It was passed as a civil rights mandate to remove barriers, whether physical or digital. It is not optional – and neither is equality.”