ADA website lawsuits: nine years of federal filings, state by state

The headline numbers

In 2025, plaintiffs filed 3,117 lawsuits in US federal courts claiming that a website was inaccessible to people with disabilities under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. That is 665 more than in 2024 and the second-highest count since the series began, after 3,255 in 2022. Website cases made up about 36 percent of all 8,667 federal ADA Title III lawsuits in 2025, up from 28 percent of 8,800 in 2024.

Monthly filings in 2025 ran from 219 in June to 319 in July, so the rise was spread over the year rather than one burst. What the law asks of a business site, and what to fix first, is in our guide to ADA website compliance.

Where the cases are filed

Website lawsuits cluster in a few federal districts, where a small number of plaintiffs' firms file most cases. The map moved in 2025:

New York, long the center of these cases, fell for the third year in a row, from 2,560 in 2022 to 1,021. Florida doubled, from 470 to 961, and Illinois appeared with 585 cases, almost all new. Plaintiffs follow the courts where cases move fastest and where the case law on websites is favorable, and that geography can shift within a year.

Why California is almost absent

California had 360 federal website cases in 2021 and four in 2025. That does not mean Californian businesses are safe. The state's Unruh Civil Rights Act treats an ADA violation as a violation of state law and allows statutory damages of at least 4,000 dollars per violation, which the federal ADA does not. Plaintiffs have therefore moved their California cases to state court, where they do not appear in the federal count.

What the federal count misses

The federal series is the most consistent long-term measure, and it undercounts in two ways. First, it leaves out state courts. UsableNet, an accessibility vendor that tracks both, counted more than 5,000 digital accessibility lawsuits in 2025 across federal courts and the state courts of New York and California. Second, it leaves out demand letters that settle before anyone files: most website complaints end with a letter, a fee and a remediation plan, and never reach a court.

So read 3,117 as a floor. The real number of businesses that faced a website accessibility claim in 2025 is higher, and no public source counts it.

Who gets sued

The filings do not come with a sector code, so the split by business type comes from vendors that read the complaints. UsableNet put e-commerce at close to 70 percent of the 2025 cases, followed by food service and healthcare, and reported that almost half of the federal cases involved a defendant that had been sued before. That matches what the complaints describe: the barriers sit in product filters, image galleries, carts and checkouts, the places where a blind customer cannot finish a purchase.

Two more patterns show up in the reporting on these cases:

• Widgets do not stop lawsuitsSites with accessibility overlays installed are sued too; the Federal Trade Commission fined the overlay vendor accessiBe 1 million dollars in 2025 over claims that its AI tool made sites compliant.
• Size does not protectThe claim rests on a barrier a plaintiff met, not on the size of the business, so small online stores and restaurants are among the defendants.

What the data does not show

No public series counts outcomes. Most cases settle under confidential terms, so settlement amounts, remediation costs and the number of cases dismissed are not known from the filings. Anyone who quotes an average settlement is quoting a sample, not this data. The series also does not show where defendants are based; a store outside the US that sells to American consumers can be sued in a US court like any other.

Why the filings moved to Florida and Illinois

Website lawsuits follow the courts where cases are quick and settle predictably, and the firms that file them. When courts in one district grow stricter on standing, asking whether the plaintiff really intended to use the site, filings move to districts where they are not. The drop in New York since 2022 and the rise in Florida and Illinois in 2025 fit that pattern. For a business, the lesson is that where you are based does not decide your risk; where a plaintiff can sue you does, and a site selling nationwide can be sued in many places.

How Europe and the UK compare

Europe has no lawsuit series like this, because enforcement works differently. Under the European Accessibility Act, in force since 28 June 2025, national market surveillance authorities check online shops and other consumer services and can order fixes and fine; consumers complain to those authorities rather than suing for fees. In Germany, competitors can also send warning letters under unfair competition law. In the UK, customers can bring a claim under the Equality Act, but such claims about websites have been rare. The result is fewer cases and less public data, not lower standards: the technical yardstick in Europe, EN 301 549, points to the same WCAG 2.1 level AA that US settlements use. A business that sells on both sides of the Atlantic meets one standard in two very different enforcement cultures.

What a business should take from it

• The risk is concentrated, not smallOver 3,000 federal cases a year, mostly against online stores, with filers that move between states as courts change.
• The fix is the same everywhereSettlements and court orders point to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. Europe's European Accessibility Act and the UK's Equality Act point to the same criteria; see UK website accessibility law and the German Accessibility Act.
• Write down where you standAn accessibility statement with a contact route shows good faith and gives customers a way to reach you before a lawyer does; our accessibility statement template has a US version.