Kansas City Website ADA Compliance Lawsuits

There is a blind man in Kansas City suing small businesses and non-profits in Kansas City, because their websites are not friendly to people with disabilities.

Non-ADA Compliant – Multi-Thousand-Dollar Lawsuits.

Below are some steps on how to mitigate your risk of being targeted by this guy.

Background story from Dec 2024 in the Kansas City Business Journal.  The guy has targeted at least 27 local organizations since August 2024.

The object of the game with this guy’s lawsuits is that his attorney runs multiple free ADA software scans against your Website. The scans find “Errors” on your Website related to his disability.  They then basically say, “Pay me,” or I’ll sue you.  Some of the Kansas City companies have just paid him off, and others are fighting him in court. Either way, there is a multi-thousand-dollar cost to your business if this guy, because of his disability, finds your Website harmful to his ability to do business with your company. 

Also, I can pretty much guarantee he is only going to be the first of many opportunistic people with an attorney who are going to get on this bandwagon.  Right now, it’s just one guy and his attorney in Kansas City. I feel it’s only a matter of time before others see his success $$$$ 

Free ADA Website Evaluation

At a high level, you have two choices.

1. Ignore the issue and hope your site never gets scanned by someone with a disability.

2. The best thing you can do for your business to avoid this guy is to scan your Website now and fix the “Errors” before he finds them.  In theory, by fixing the “Errors” before he finds them, he will pass your Website by and move on to companies that haven’t fixed the “Errors”.  Not guaranteed, but hopefully probable. 

This is a business risk management problem.

The risk management is that there is no way to make a Website ADA-compliant. Because there are no U.S. laws stating what an ADA-compliant Website looks like, or what a business has to do to have an ADA-compliant Website.  There is a 2,500-page “guidelines” document written by this group, W3C.org.   W3C is an International group of about 400 businesses that has been around since about 1994.  They created a 2,500-page “guidelines” document, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

This 2,500-page guideline document gives “recommendations” on things you can do to a Website to make it easier for someone with a disability to use your Website.  The free ADA software scans mentioned above use these guidelines as a base and can highlight “Errors”, “Alerts”, and “Information” aspects related to the 2,500-page “guideline” document.  It’s up to you at that point to modify your Website code so these scans don’t flag at least the “Errors”.  

How KC Web Specialists has been helping fellow business owners. 

KC Web Specialists has been helping local businesses over the last two months run these free ADA software scans and identify the ADA-related “Errors” with the Websites.  We then go into the code of the Website and fix the site so that if an ADA-type software is used to scan the Website, the “Errors” no longer show up in the scan.   Cost-wise (this typically is a one-time cost, not annually like the KC Business Journal article says). For the companies we’ve helped, it’s been between $700 – $1,500 to get their sites through the ADA software scans without “Errors”. 

Does this “guarantee” your site will not be sued for future Website ADA issues?  No. Because remember, there is no U.S. law related to ADA compliance and Websites.  But hopefully, because your site is not flagging “Errors” from running the ADA scanning software, this guy or others like him will just pass you by and move on to a company Website that has more “Errors”. 

This is a complicated problem. 

I am more than happy to have a free Zoom meeting or come speak with any local business that wants to become more knowledgeable about this problem.

The object of the game is to ultimately make your Website more friendly for people with disabilities. As a benefit, you probably won’t then get sued. 

Free ADA Website Evaluation

KC WEB SPECIALISTS