A lawsuit starts when a plaintiff files a complaint that identifies violations committed by a defendant. After a lawsuit begins, a defendant can ask the judge to dismiss the complaint as “moot,” which means that all of the violations alleged in the plaintiff’s complaint are already fixed and are not likely to recur.
This argument usually does not work in web accessibility cases because websites are dynamic and future barriers can always be introduced. Sometimes, a mootness argument can work to get a lawsuit dismissed when the plaintiff does not challenge the defendant’s allegations.
In this lawsuit, a plaintiff, Luis Torro, sued Medbar Corp., a company that sells motorcycle products and is doing business as Richmond Honda House. The company does not have a brick-and-mortar store in New York State but they maintain a website.
The plaintiff claimed that the company’s website is inaccessible to people who are blind and low vision. The plaintiff alleged while visiting the website they could not buy a motorcycle helmet for a friend. He couldn’t navigate the website because it wasn’t accessible. They allege that the website violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title III.
Medbar moved to dismiss and submitted an affidavit from the store manager that all the alleged violations had been fixed and would not happen again. The court dismissed the case.
Thomas Logan: Hello, everyone. This is Thomas Logan from Equal Entry here with Ken Nakata of Converge Accessibility. In this episode of A11yInsights, we’re talking about an example of mootness claims. Ken wrote about this topic in his legal update for May 2024, and we want to explore the topic further.
What Is “Mootness”?
Thomas Logan: So, Ken, kick us off. What is mootness?
Ken Nakata: Well, Thomas, a lawsuit starts when a plaintiff files a complaint that identifies some violations that are committed by the defendant. And after the lawsuit begins, a defendant can ask the judge to dismiss the complaint as moot, which basically means that all of the allegations alleged in the complaint are already fixed and aren’t likely to recur.
So, this argument usually doesn’t work in web accessibility cases because websites are dynamic and future barriers can always pop up. Sometimes a mootness argument can work to get a lawsuit dismissed when the plaintiff doesn’t challenge the defendant’s allegations adequately enough.
The Plaintiff’s Complaint
Thomas Logan: I’ll start us off with explaining the plaintiff’s complaint.
So the plaintiff, Luis Toro, sued a company called Medbar Corp. They sell motorcycle products, and they’re doing business as Richmond Honda House. The company does not have a brick-and-mortar store in New York State, but they do maintain a website. Here we are with websites again, and needing to think about accessibility.
The plaintiff claimed the company’s website does not work for people who are blind and low vision. And Luis wanted to purchase a motorcycle helmet for a friend from the website. He alleges he could not navigate the website because it was not accessible. And it’s not accessible because it violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA Title III.
The Defendant’s Response
Thomas Logan: What was the defendant’s response to that?
Ken Nakata: The defendant made a motion to dismiss and they raised a number of different arguments. Their motion really focused on issues like personal jurisdiction, which is the fact that the court really shouldn’t try to exercise jurisdiction against a company that’s located out of state. Because in this case, Richmond Honda House is in Virginia and the plaintiff is in New York, and they argued that most of their business wasn’t in New York.
Almost none of their business was actually in New York. But they also raised an argument about mootness. And they asserted that most of the issues had been fixed, or all of the issues that plaintiff raised had been fixed, and that they put in place processes to make sure that that wouldn’t happen again.
And that was really raised in the affidavit, which was provided by the company’s general manager.
The Plaintiff’s Response
Thomas Logan: And I would believe that now the plaintiff has a chance to respond, and I would imagine maybe it’s possible to test the site again and or make some other observations that those items are not still fixed. But what was the plaintiff’s response in this case?
Ken Nakata: Well, again, because the defendant’s arguments were mostly about personal jurisdiction, they naturally focused on that. But they also didn’t spend very much time addressing the mootness issue. They didn’t introduce any new evidence. And basically all that they said was they pointed out the fact that the defendant’s general manager said, “Well, to the best of my knowledge, all the issues have been resolved and we’re taking all these steps to make sure that they don’t happen again.”
But the plaintiff also didn’t contest that in any meaningful way by introducing new evidence or going back to the website and saying, “Look, the website still has the problems that I had when I tried to buy my motorcycle helmet in the beginning.” And really didn’t make much of an argument against it at all.
What Was the Judge’s Decision?
Thomas Logan: After that happens, the plaintiff’s response sounds like the judge has to make a decision. What did the judge decide in this case?
Ken Nakata: Yeah, so the judge’s decision really focused almost entirely on mootness, which wasn’t really that well discussed in the briefs. And the judge focused in on the fact that the plaintiff didn’t introduce any new information or any new evidence and didn’t really contest that one assertion that was made by the general manager.
And so the court decided, “Well, in this case, the case is moot because the plaintiff doesn’t contest the idea that the violations have been fixed and aren’t likely to recur.”
Thomas Logan: That’s unfortunate I would have loved it if they could have tested the page more specifically again and shown the motorcycle helmet still wasn’t available to purchase, maybe the judge would have had a different decision if that had been part of the plaintiff’s response. What do you think about that?
Ken Nakata: If the plaintiff had responded with any additional evidence suggesting that the problem still exists on the website, then the judge would have had to have denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss, at least on the mootness grounds.
In this case, there wasn’t that much for the court to base its decision on, but what little evidence it had was in favor of the defendant. Personally, I disagree with this opinion. I think that the judge should have asked for a more thorough briefing on mootness before the judge just dismissed the case.
So, it is what it is though. And, the judge had enough information there to dismiss the case, but I think that he really should have asked for a more thorough briefing on the issue.
Thomas Logan: Well, thank you, Ken. I definitely learned a new definition of a word, “mootness.” Imagine, a lot of you all listening here might not have known the definition of this word either.
I think from an accessibility perspective, my big takeaway is we don’t want accessibility cases to be rendered moot when the website still actually does have accessibility barriers for people. We’d love to hear from you. So let’s continue the conversation.
Please add your comments and we’ll be happy to respond. Thank you so much for your time and we will see you in our next episode.
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