ADA website lawsuits statistics: the numbers and who gets sued

Every figure on this page comes from a source we read on October 11, 2026, and each is linked where it appears. Most come from one tracker: the ADA Title III blog of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw, whose reports chart federal filings back to 2017. We use one series throughout, because counts from different trackers measure different things and do not add up.

Federal website lawsuits by year

Seyfarth's March 2026 report, Federal Court Website Accessibility Lawsuit Filings Bounce Back in 2025, gives the 2025 total as 3,117: "665 more than 2024's total of 2,452, representing a 27% increase". The same report charts every year since 2017.

The 2025 figure is the second highest in the series, after 2022. It followed two years of decline, which Seyfarth puts at 14% in 2023 and 13% in 2024. Seyfarth notes that the 27% rise "coincidentally almost exactly" matches those two percentages, but in numbers 2025 (3,117) is still below 2022 (3,255).

Website suits as a share of all ADA Title III suits

Website cases are one part of ADA Title III litigation. Seyfarth reports that website suits were 36% of all federal Title III suits in 2025 (3,117 of 8,667; Seyfarth, March 2026), up from 28% in 2024 (2,452 of 8,800). The total number of Title III suits fell slightly while website suits rose.

What these numbers count, and what they leave out

Before quoting any of these figures, it helps to know their scope:

• Federal courts only. Seyfarth says it still sees "a significant number of demand letters and lawsuits filed in state courts, which are not included in our federal lawsuit numbers, especially against businesses with physical locations."
• No demand letters. Letters that never become a federal case are not counted. Our demand letter guide covers what to do with one.
• Websites as described in complaints. Seyfarth counts suits "alleging that plaintiffs with a disability could not use websites because they were not designed to be accessible and/or work with assistive technologies". The report does not separate mobile app cases.
• A keyword method. The 2025 website numbers "are based on searches using keywords of data from the Courthouse News Services." Seyfarth's overall Title III totals come from PACER, the federal court docket system, with Title II cases removed by reviewing the complaints (2026 mid-year report).
• A minimum, not a census. Seyfarth says "it is possible that there are some website accessibility cases that were not captured in the searches", and labels its charts "The number of cases that could be identified through a diligent search" (Seyfarth, March 2026).

Other organizations publish lawsuit counts with different scopes, such as federal and state courts combined, or digital cases of every kind. Those series are not comparable with this one, so we do not mix them here.

2026 so far

Seyfarth's 2026 mid-year report, published September 9, 2026, counts 5,006 federal ADA Title III suits in the first six months of 2026, a 9% increase from 4,575 in the first half of 2025, against an average of 4,463 for the first halves of the previous four years. Seyfarth writes that "If this trend continues, 2026 could end with over 10,000 federal filings". That is a projection, not a count.

The 5,006 figure covers all Title III suits, not just websites. The mid-year report does not give a separate website count, so there is no published first-half 2026 website figure in this series yet. It does say that New York's lower total "likely reflects the fact that the federal courts there have applied somewhat more stringent standing standards in website accessibility lawsuits, causing plaintiffs to file in state court instead." In other words, fewer federal cases in one state can mean cases moved to a court these numbers do not count.

Where website suits are filed

Seyfarth's 2025 report charts filings by state:

Seyfarth's explanation for the gap between New York and California is about the courts, not about websites. In New York, it reports, most federal district judges who have addressed the question have treated online-only businesses as covered by the ADA, though the Second Circuit has not decided it. In California, Seyfarth writes, "both federal and state courts of appeals have reached the conclusion that online only businesses are not covered by the ADA". Federal appeals courts are split on online-only businesses, so where a business can be sued affects its exposure. Our page on US accessibility law explains the leading case, Robles v. Domino's Pizza (9th Cir. 2019), which held that a website and app connected to physical restaurants are covered.

For all Title III suits, not only websites, the first half of 2026 ranking was California 2,426, Florida 709, Illinois 505 and New York 485; Seyfarth notes New York, "usually showing up in the second or third position", dropped to fourth (mid-year report). Those are counts of all Title III suits, not website suits, so they do not show where website cases went.

Who gets sued

ADA Title III covers businesses open to the public, which the law calls public accommodations. The statute lists 12 categories, from hotels and restaurants to stores, banks, health care offices, private schools and gyms, and sets no employee-count threshold for being covered (42 U.S.C. 12181(7)).

In some states a few plaintiffs and firms file most of the suits. Seyfarth attributes the 2025 rise to "new plaintiff's attorneys in the website accessibility space" (March 2026), and its 2026 report says "several relatively new plaintiffs' firms have arrived on the ADA Title III scene". In Missouri, Seyfarth found that "one plaintiff (represented by a single firm) was responsible for every single one of the 121 website accessibility lawsuits filed in 2024 and 2025" in the state's federal and state courts (May 2026). In the first half of 2026, Seyfarth counts one firm behind 336 of Illinois's 505 Title III suits and another behind 121 of Minnesota's 124 (all Title III suits, not only websites; mid-year report).

By industry: Seyfarth's counts are not broken down by industry, and we have not found an independent count that is. Industry shares published by accessibility vendors are not independent counts, so we do not repeat them.

What the complaints are about

Describing one recent New York case, Seyfarth writes that "Like so many others", the complaint said a blind plaintiff could not complete a purchase because of coding issues that did not meet WCAG, including missing "alt-text, hidden elements on web pages, incorrectly formatted lists, unannounced pop ups, unclear labels for interactive elements", features that needed a mouse, and broken links (Seyfarth, April 1, 2026).

The DOJ's own guidance on web accessibility names the same kinds of barriers: poor color contrast, missing alt text on images, videos without captions, inaccessible online forms, and mouse-only navigation. Most of these can be found quickly:

• missing or wrong alt text: the alt text checker, which compares the image with its description, and the alt text guide;
• missing alt text: the free scan, which flags images with no text alternative, and the alt text guide;
• low contrast: the contrast checker for color pairs and the image contrast checker for text over photos;
• unclear links and headings: the link text checker and heading checker;
• keyboard and focus problems: our five-minute keyboard test, because our rule checks read markup and cannot test keyboard behavior.

For how often these failures occur across the web, see the most common accessibility errors, based on WebAIM's survey of a million home pages.

What a lawsuit can lead to

Under federal Title III, a private plaintiff can get a court order to remove the barrier (42 U.S.C. 12188(a)), and the court may award the winning party a reasonable attorney's fee (42 U.S.C. 12205). When the DOJ brings a case, civil penalties assessed after July 3, 2025 can reach $118,225 for a first violation and $236,451 for a later one (28 CFR 85.5). State laws can add other claims: in the New York case described below, Seyfarth notes the plaintiff could also file in state court "alleging New York state and city civil rights claims" (Seyfarth, April 1, 2026).

We have found no independent, published count of settlement amounts, so this page gives no settlement figures.

Documented work on a site can matter in court. In the same New York case, the court dismissed the suit as moot after the business filed a declaration describing its testing and remediation, and the plaintiff offered no evidence in reply. The dismissal was "without prejudice", so the plaintiff could amend or refile, and it is one decision, not a rule.

State laws aimed at website suits

Missouri's Act Against Abusive Website or Web Content Access Litigation (RSMo 537.1250) lets a Missouri resident sued over website access, or the state attorney general, ask a court to decide whether the suit is abusive, meaning its primary purpose is "obtaining a payment from a defendant due to the costs of defending the action in court." It includes a "Safe Harbor Provision": a defendant that "receives written notice of an alleged website or web content access violation and in good faith initiates substantial steps to correct it within ninety days" gets a rebuttable presumption that a later claim is abusive. A court can award fees, and punitive damages or sanctions up to three times the fees. By its own terms the section applies to litigation pending on August 28, 2026, the date the Revisor of Statutes lists as its effective date. Under subsection 6, if the DOJ issues Title III web accessibility standards and the attorney general notifies the revisor, the section expires for entities registered with the Missouri secretary of state and for the state and its political subdivisions. It changes how suits are handled in Missouri, not what the ADA requires.

What to do with these numbers

1. If a letter or complaint has arrived, start with a lawyer

   Then follow the order of work in our ADA demand letter guide: note every deadline, preserve records, test the pages named, and fix the source code.

2. Test the paths a plaintiff tests

   The New York complaint above described a purchase the plaintiff could not complete. Test the tasks visitors come for, such as finding a product, checking out or filling in a form, with a free scan and a keyboard, not just the home page.

3. Fix the code, not with an overlay

   The FTC's April 2025 order required accessiBe to pay $1,000,000 over claims that its product would make websites conform to WCAG. Our overlays page has the details.

4. Keep a dated record

   Record what you tested, what you fixed and when, and re-test after changes. A record is what lets a business show its work, as the New York case above illustrates. Our ADA website compliance guide and step-by-step accessibility guide cover the work itself.