By: Allyson Cohen, Staff Editor

March 21, 2025

Imagine the frustration you would feel if you opened your computer every day, tried to log onto a website, and were unable to use it. Now imagine the frustration you would feel if the reason you could not use the website was due to a disability you had and could not prevent. Would it make you angry if abled-bodied individuals could actively browse the same website you were excluded from, and there was little recourse to fix it?

In 1990, Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a federal law intended to curb discrimination against individuals with disabilities.[1] Title III of the Act prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodations. Because the Act does not mention websites within its list of “public accommodations,” the Federal circuit courts are left to interpret this Act when a case is within its Jurisdiction and specifically pertains to websites. As such, a circuit split has evolved regarding this issue presently: whether a website should be considered a place of public accommodation under the Act.

With little guidance from Congress as to whether websites should be considered a place of public accommodation subject to ADA regulations, several of the circuit courts have aligned with one another. The Seventh Circuit and First Circuit agree that the ADA does not limit public accommodations to physical structures.[2] On the contrary, the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits agree that websites are limited to physical structures, and there must be a nexus of a physical location to determine that a website is a public accommodation.[3]

The best solution to this issue would be for Congress to clarify in the Act’s text and define whether all websites are places of public accommodation. Moreover, this blog argues that all websites should be categorized as places of public accommodation and subject to ADA regulations. This suggestion follows from the surge in technological advancement, specifically since the ADA was enacted.[4] The technological advancements within the last decade have proven that websites are used by all individuals in society. Another solution to resolving the federal circuit court split would be for the Supreme Court to grant certiorari for a case that involves this issue. The Supreme Court did have a chance to settle this issue in Acheson Hotels; however, the Court ultimately dismissed the case as moot.[5] Lastly, a final solution to resolving the federal circuit split would be to resolve the circuit split: specifically, the Circuit Courts can begin to apply the same approach to attack this issue–so that plaintiffs can expect a similar judicial approach to federal law.

Should the Circuit Courts agree on an approach, the Seventh and First Circuits approach should be used: there is a presumption that the ADA does not limit public accommodations to physical structures.[6] The Seventh and First Circuit’s analysis considers the effects technology has had on accessibility for the public at large, and especially for individuals with disabilities. The Seventh and First Circuits purposivism type approach will no longer allow individuals with disabilities to be excluded from the digital world in violation of the ADA. It accounts for the legitimate offerings in the digital world that individuals with disabilities should be entitled to access like able-bodied individuals. The Seventh and First Circuits recognize the ADA’s purpose– to stop discrimination against individuals with disabilities in general.

This circuit split has been shown to create differing results for Plaintiffs in similar circumstances seeking relief under the same Federal law. Individuals with disabilities will not be afforded the same or equal protection under the law as abled-bodied individuals until Congress amends the legislative text of the ADA, the Supreme Court makes a final ruling on how this issue should be resolved, or the Circuit Courts all begin analyzing website accessibility cases using the same analysis.

 

 

[1] A Brief History of the Disability Rights Movement, ADL (Mar. 5, 2017), https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/brief-history-disability-rights-movement.

[2] Morgan v. Joint Admin. Bd., 268 F.3d 456, 459 (7th Cir. 2001); Carparts Distrib. Ctr. v. Auto. Wholesaler’s Ass’n, 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994).

[3] Herrera v. Humana, Inc., No. 23-11948 (MEF)(AME), 2024 U.S. Dist. Lexis 146411, at *4 (N.J. Aug. 15, 2024) (citing Menkowitz v. Pottstown Mem’l Med. Ctr., 154 F.3d 113 (3rd Cir. 1998)); Peoples v. Discover Fin. Servs., 387 F. App’x 179 (3rd Cir. 2010); Parker v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 121 F.3d 1006 (6th Cir. 1997); Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, 913 F.3d 898, 905 (9th Cir. 2019).

[4] Susannah Fox & Lee Rainie, Part I: How the internet had woven itself into American Life, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Feb. 27, 2014), https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/.

[5] Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer, 601 U.S. 1 (2023).

[6] William Goren, Absent a Gateway to a Physical Place, is an Internet Site Subject to Title III of the ADA: The View From Both Sides of the Argument, Understanding the ADA (Oct. 18, 2023), https://www.understandingtheada.com/blog/2023/10/18/absent-a-gateway-to-a-physical-place-is-an-internet-site-subject-to-title-iii-of-the-ada/.