April 2021 Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Information

• 177 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in April.
• Consumer Durables & Apparel, Consumer Discretionary and Consumer Staples were targeted most.
• Six plaintiffs filed 42% of the month's website accessibility lawsuits.
• GOTTLIEB & ASSOCIATES filed the most complaints in April with 30 lawsuits in New York.
• Most lawsuits (70%) were filed in New York with California coming in second at 24%
• We detected that 7% of litigated websites in April are using a third-party accessibility overlay tool.

Consumer industries remained the most targeted in April.

Consumer Durables & Apparel, Consumer Discretionary, and Consumer Staples saw a combined total of 84 lawsuits, accounting for 47.5% of all cases. Health Care Equipment & Services and Food, Beverage & Tobacco industries also combined for 20% of the month's total.

For now the twelfth month in a row, New York saw the highest number of lawsuits, registering 124 (70%) in April.

California produced 24% of the month's cases, while Florida, Indiana, and Connecticut had 10 combined.

Third-Party Overlays

We detected that 7% of litigated websites in April are using a third-party accessibility overlay tool.

Typically overlays, or widgets, apply the third-party’s source code to the existing code of the host website in an effort to change the user experience by overriding or adding to the existing code. Overlays are often added instead of manually identifying or resolving accessibility barriers in a website’s code and design, which would generally occur during an audit or test from an accessibility subject matter expert. By not addressing the underlying cause of accessibility barriers, the effectiveness of overlays has been debated. There has also been an increase in the number of lawsuits against websites that use third-party overlays.

Plaintiffs Who Filed the Most Lawsuits

Cristian Sanchez is the most litigious website accessibility plaintiff, filing 27 lawsuits in April.

GOTTLIEB & ASSOCIATES filed the most complaints in April with 30 lawsuits in New York. Pacific Trial Attorneys were right behind with 29 filings in California.