Website accessibility lawsuits are still on the rise. In fact, with the DOJ’s recent placement of website regulations on the “inactive list”, litigation is likely to continue. The number of website accessibility lawsuits filed in federal court since the beginning of 2015 has surged to at least 751 as of August 15, 2017, with at least 432 of those filed in just the first eight and a half months of 2017—well over the 262 lawsuits that were filed in all of 2015 and 2016. There is no easy way to capture every website accessibility lawsuit filed in federal court. The actual numbers are likely higher. These numbers also do not include the many cases filed in state courts nor demand letters that are consistently sent and then settled out of court.
These lawsuits are a significant portion of the increase in total ADA lawsuits filed in federal courts this year. Already over 2600 filings in 2017—an 18% increase over the number of federal cases filed in the same time period in 2016.