Judge rules merchant website is ‘place of public accommodation’

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Legally blind consumers have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota against a yarn producer because they are not able to navigate the company’s website. The plaintiffs assert that Lion Brand Yarn Company, the oldest producer of kitting and craft yarn in the United States, is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act because they cannot navigate the company’s website.

Plaintiffs are Clarence and Tammy Frost. Clarence Frost has severe low vision, while Tammy Frost has no eyes and is completely blind. Both use screen reader technology to navigate the internet. Tammy enjoys knitting and has purchased Lion Brand’s yarn from retail stores.

Lion Brand, based in Carlstadt, New Jersey, has a website for those interested in researching or purchasing their products. First going online in 1996, Lion Brand’s website received 1.13 million visitors in February 2024.

According to the court’s order, Tammy Frost has visited the website several times to try to find yarn. However, when she has visited the website, her screen reader received “confusing, disorienting, and nonsensical information.”

Neither Frost has been able to navigate and understand the website, and they have been unable to complete a purchase on Lion Brand’s site without being assisted. Independent audits of the website confirmed problems for consumers reliant on screen reader technology.

The Frosts, who have filed similar lawsuits against several other online vendors, claimed that Lion Brand violates Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act since they are unable to navigate the website’s content with their screen reader.

The relevant portion of the Americans with Disabilities Act reads:

“No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation.”

Lion Brand argued that the Frosts failed to state a claim for violation of Title III of the ADA since the statute discusses places “of public accommodation.” In a motion to dismiss, the company asserted that websites are not places of public accommodation.

While the question of whether a “place of public accommodation” must be physical in structure has been before federal courts, it has not been resolved by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Other circuits have considered the issue, but they have been split. In the 3rd, 6th, and 9th circuits, the courts have held that this section of the ADA unambiguously applies only to physical structures. Conversely, in cases before the 1st and 7th circuits, the courts found that Title III of the ADA could apply to non-physical structures. But none of these cases dealt with website accessibility.

Website accessibility has been in front of district courts across the country, and many of those courts have held that websites are places of public accommodation under the ADA. However, a federal court in California held that Netflix’s website was not an actual physical place, so it was not a place of public accommodation.

While acknowledging that the question was not resolved by the statute’s plain language, U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez, with chambers in Minneapolis, ultimately determined that Lion Brand’s website fell within the meaning of a “place of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA. That determination allows the Frosts’ lawsuit to proceed.

“Title III’s legislative history supports the conclusion that a stand-alone website like Lion Brand’s is a place of public accommodation. This is true even though the ADA was passed prior to the advent of the internet,” wrote Menendez.

“A brick-and-mortar sales establishment can discriminatorily prevent disabled persons from gaining meaningful access to its goods and services by failing to install ramps for wheelchair access or omitting braille signage to allow vision-impaired customers to find public restrooms,” Menendez continued. “In similar ways, online sales establishments that fail to maintain websites that can be navigated by those who are blind or visually impaired prohibit these customers from gaining equal access to their goods and services because they cannot navigate those websites even when using screen-reader technology.”

Nor was Menendez convinced by Lion Brand’s argument that the lack of amendment to the ADA indicted that Congress intend to exclude websites from Title III’s coverage.

“Construing a statute by reference to post-enactment legislative silence is a fraught enterprise that rarely yields clear answers,” Menendez explained. “Here, in the years since the internet has become a place where customers engage in significant commerce, the fact that the ADA has not been amended to expressly include websites in the list of places of public accommodation could just as easily reflect Congress’s understanding that no amendment was necessary.”

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