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Re: cost of lawsuit?

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From: Lucy Greco
Date: May 22, 2019 10:44AM

It's really too bad they're not thinking about this as an opportunity to
gain more customers it's only anecdotal but I'm betting that if they spend
the money to actually make the fixes which would definitely be less than
the settlement they would gain more business than they actually spent on
the settlement this is just really too sad making the problem go away never
happens once they've settled with one person what's stopping somebody else
this is not a class and even if it was a class I don't think that prevents
other people from being able to Sue

On Wed, May 22, 2019, 9:37 AM glen walker < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I have a client that has a "driveby" lawsuit (serial plaintiff) and they
> just want to settle and pay the fee as the cost of doing business. That
> is, they aren't really interested in fixing accessibility issues and just
> want to pay some money to make the problem go away.
>
> We know that lawsuits and fear are not great motivators. Ideally,
> corporate/social responsibility comes into play as well as the ROI of the
> business.
>
> Are there any numbers out there regarding the cost of an accessibility
> lawsuit? There are intangible costs, such as a company's reputation, and
> the cost of actually making changes to the site to make it accessible
> (which can vary widely depending on how large the site is, how complex the
> pages are, whether common widget libraries were used, etc), and possibly
> costs of setting up an accessibility program at the company (if required in
> the settlement). But what about the fee (punitive?) paid to the plaintiff
> or attorney fees (both the defendant's and the plaintiff's).
>
> If you do settle and pay whatever fines and costs, are you really done?
> Your site is still not accessible. Does "double jeopardy" protect you from
> another ADA lawsuit? If so, that would be disappointing. For example, if
> a big box company gets sued and the cost of settlement is just pittance to
> what the company is worth, and they don't have to worry about being sued
> again, it's a loss for everyone.
>
> I know we're not lawyers (well, Lainey is) and I'm not asking for legal
> advice. Just curious whether costs have been published. A lot of times
> the settlement amounts are not published.
>
> Glen
> > > > >