TheAccessPond.com

When I awoke this morning, a colleague of mine from the east coast called to tell me incredible news– the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) settled their long-standing lawsuit against Target Corporation for its inaccessible website for over $6 million!  This is really big news that ends two and a half years of bitter litigation and that has some important ramifications.

For a company that announced $634 million in quarterly earnings earlier this month, $6 million might seem like “nuisance value” to make this suit go away.  I don’t think so for four reasons.  First, Target fiercely fought this case and dragged it out– so why stop now?  Second, the court’s previous rulings got the law right and things weren’t looking great for Target.  So, settling now avoids a lot of trouble down the road.  Third, the $6 million only goes to class members in California (Californians get the lucky break because, while the case was brought under the Federal ADA statute and the California state law, only California law authorizes the court to award money damages– yes, what state you live in really does affect your rights).  The settlement authorizes $3,500 for each valid claim (up to two per person), which isn’t bad compensation for not being able to buy a $1.99 bottle of detergent online from Target.com on a given day.  Fourth, Target is under some pressure right now to make sure it doesn’t waste money.  While it’s hard to feel sorry for a company that just earned $634 million this quarter, those earnings actually represent an 8% loss in revenue.  If they don’t shape up soon and tighten their belts, there are going to be some pretty angry shareholders out there.

I’ll spend some time describing the case in more detail in a later posting (far too much for 11:00 pm) but a few thoughts occur to me.  First and foremost, from a legal perspective, we can’t get too excited about the settlement because it’s only a settlement– without a court actually saying websites have to be accessible, no one is yet compelled to make them accessible (this is no slight against NFB’s attorneys or the strength of their case– a lawyer is ethically obliged to recommend a fair settlement offer to their client).  But second, from a business perspective, major companies do have reason to be concerned for two reasons.  With NFB’s success, other advocates may sense blood in the water and this may increase the chances of getting hit with a suit.  Additionally, most major companies have a large customer base in California and they can’t just say, “we sell to anyone but people in California.”  If you can’t wait until then, you can always check out the settlement yourself at http://www.nfbtargetlawsuit.com/.

Of course, in our legal system, anyone can sue anyone for anything.  This is annoying for anyone, particularly because defending a suit is expensive.  But there are some things that companies can do to minimize their risk of getting sued in the first place.  I’ll explore some of those strategies in a later post, but the most obvious one is “don’t be a target” (pun intended).

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