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Re: Regarding VPAT and litigation

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From: Steve Green
Date: May 28, 2021 9:34AM

I'm not a lawyer either, but I have some experience of this and have done a lot of research.

Firstly, in the US, the overwhelming risk of litigation is not from genuine users of a website - they invariably go through the proper channels to ask the company for help. The biggest risk is from ambulance-chasing parasite lawyers who are looking for a nice payday.

However, your customer does not fit the profile of their typical victim. Most law suits are brought against companies in specific sectors such as hotels, restaurants, luxury goods and clothing chain stores. The typical size range is $20M to $200M annual turnover - large enough to secure a substantial pay-out, but small enough that they won't want a long drawn-out court battle. As such, your risk is low.

On the flip side, such law suits never have anything to do with the user experience. The lawyers use an automated testing tool, and if it reports more than a couple of issues, they file a boilerplate law suit. Almost all websites contain such issues, so your risk is high. This is why we tell our US clients to fix all the issues that automated tools find, even if they do not affect the user experience.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Jonathan Avila
Sent: 28 May 2021 16:20
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Regarding VPAT and litigation

Generally speaking in the US under the Affordable Care Act Section 1557 and the ADA there are not technical specifications for meeting website conformance. Generally WCAG 2 is used as a goal and for evaluation, however, the likely test would be functional access. Does the site provide effective communication, can people with disabilities access and enjoy the goods, services, and privileges, does the organization have a policy and programs in place to become and remain accessible. I am not in a position to offer legal advice but you'd generally want to make sure the site is functionally usable to people with disabilities and also make sure you have the proper policies in place to address any feedback and make sure future updates are accessible, etc.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of Dhananjay Bhole
Sent: Friday, May 28, 2021 10:58 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Subject: [WebAIM] Regarding VPAT and litigation

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Hello,

Can any buddy assist me in understanding following case?

One of our customer which is a non for profit organization providing paramedical support to people has recently remediated their website for section 508 compliance and filed VPAT.
The website could not be completely remediated as we could not fix some low level issues due to some technical reasons of the already used template in the website. However those issues are not blocking any major or minor functionalities of the website. Only it shall affect the comfort of users with disabilities.

How much is the threat of non compliance of this website in USA?

Can I get any legal opinion on it.

Regards
--
Dhananjay Bhole,
Accessibility evangelist,
Cell: +919850123212
Website: http://www.sites.google.com/site/dhananjaybhole