11 ms·

Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. They declined to hear Domino's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's (

Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. They declined to hear Domino's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's (unanimous and clearly correctly decided) reversal of the District Court's absurd dismissal. Domino's tried to claim that their due process rights were being violated since there is no federally-mandated standard for accessibility. But the ADA is clear: businesses have a legal requirement to ensure that disabled customers have "full and equal enjoyment" of their goods and services. Domino's made the tenuous argument that the lack of a specific standard meant that they didn't receive fair notice. Robles, the plaintiff, argued that the appropriate standard to apply was WCAG 2.0. Instead of offering a different possible standard (which would have been a defensible legal rationale), Domino's position was basically, "fuck off". It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Make sure your content and markup are reasonably semantic. Use standard form components for data entry. Where more complex, visual-first designs are employed, make sure there are text-based fallbacks. If you are a professional software developer, doing this is not just your legal responsibility, it's your moral responsibility.

calvinmorrison 7y ago
And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired. What I find appauling is I need to be disabled to demand a website that doesn't require font.js and 600 trackers to run, that doesn't intercept my scroll wheel or make me use a Google product for captcha. hyper text mark up language is dead. Long live the world wide web.
- ncallaway 7y ago
  > And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired. Well, now, as developers we have more ammunition to backup the moral obligation. Now we can demand the time to validate that a site is compliant with WCAG 2.0, and point to this ruling as a legal mandate to do so.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gnicholas 7y ago
> Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. A unanimous denial of certiorari (declining to hear the case) sends a pretty strong message to lawyers and their clients. It only takes 4 votes (1 less than majority) to hear a case, so the fact that there were zero justices interested is a clear message. While it is technically possible that there could in the future be a circuit split, which could then be appealed to the SCOTUS, it is unlikely SCOTUS would hear that case. And given what happened today, it is even less likely that a competent lawyer would counsel their client to appeal a similar case up to a federal appeals court (because it looks like it would be a loser of a case). So while the SCOTUS did not affirmatively speak today, their unanimously declining to hear the case does actually say something new, and this is being hailed as a landmark-ish case in the legal accessibility community. FWIW, IAAL, and I run an assistive technology startup.
- couchand 7y ago
  That's awesome to hear, thanks for clarifying.
- Pinckney 7y ago
  I don't think we know it was unanimous. The orders list doesn't say anything to that effect, and the justices rarely publicly dissent from denials of cert, so their silence doesn't mean anything. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m648.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m6...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    You're right that public dissents from cert. denial are not as common as dissents from SCOTUS opinions. However, given the questions presented, the current composition of the Court, and the fact that only 4 justices are needed to grant cert., it still seems unlikely that the Court would rule in favor of a different defendant in a different case. That is, this case presented a novel issue, and it was at a stage where the questions were legal in nature (not factual). That's the perfect opportunity for SCOTUS to take the case if they planned to interpret the ADA as not applying to business' websites. They could hypothetically weigh in on the case after Dominos has a full trial with all the facts, but if they planned to say that as a matter of law the ADA does not apply to Dominoes' website, why would they wait to do so? And since both "sides" (liberal and conservative) of the Court have at least 4 justices right now, either could have independently granted cert. This is especially true for the conservative wing, which is typically viewed (or typically caricatured, depending on your perspective) as being more business-friendly — and which has 5 justices. Regardless, thanks for raising this point. You're right that the absence of a cert. denial dissent does not strictly indicate a unanimous vote.
balls187 7y ago
> full and equal enjoyment I know there is a snarky comment about enjoying Dominoe's pizza... But it is comical that Dominoes championed ordering pizza by tweeting an pizza emoji, but failed to address helping the bling order online.
- partiallypro 7y ago
  The argument from Domino's was that you could still order over the phone, and thus they weren't discriminating against customers.
chillacy 7y ago
I'm not sure if this changed, but as I recalled, Domino's site was a Flash application with a pretty non-standard UI. Their lack of accessibility may be a consequence of that technical decision.
- julianozen 7y ago
  Dominoes also literally has a client on every platform in existence from smart tvs to smart assitants to slack. I'm certain they can figure out a viable option with their APIs
pakitan 7y ago
> It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Do you follow the standards? If you show me a web site that you've developed I'll show you a site with multiple violations of WCAG 2.0. Hell, JAWS' own site is littered with WCAG violations! Yes, "accessibility at the basic level" is easy but WCAG 2.0 is not "accessibility at the basic level". It's a huge set of rules that are often unclear and ambiguous. And that's fine because WCAG 2.0 is just something that you should aspire to. But if you start defining accessibility by whether a site conforms to WCAG 2.0 or not, then I can guarantee you that every single popular site is non-accessible. We got sued and believe me it has nothing to do with blind people. Our site is of zero interest to them. Companies are sued by scumbag lawyers, who have made a nice little racket out of this thing. It's really unfortunate that the HN crowd is siding with them, as if they are championing the rights of disabled people. It's all about money.
- Mvandenbergh 7y ago
  That is a natural consequence of the way in which the United States chooses to enforce rules like this. In some other countries, there are regulators who do this kind of thing and issue relatively small fines and compliance notices. Since the regulator itself is publically funded, it does not need to live off the fine income. In the US, the choice was made instead to create a private right of action and to allow legal fees to be recovered. That means that lawyers who make this their business have to aim high to cover their costs (including from cases they lose) and are no incentivised to let a company off with a compliance notice and a deadline to improve. As a result, there are a certain percentage of ADA cases which are not brought in good faith but that is the system the people have decided they want.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    It's interesting, at least. Usually I would actually say separations of powers are good, as are powers to the judiciary; but you are correct that we do have a problem here with this in the States with frivolous lawsuits and bloodsucking lawyers. On the other hand, regulators pouring bleach on food for the homeless and secret homeless rescue operations to avoid regulators are a real thing. As are hairdressers being shut down, fined and even jailed for things like not having a license to braid hair, or giving free haircuts to the homeless. Excessive regulations also kill jobs and productivity from overzealous and power-tripping regulators. There are horrors on both sides. Honestly, I'd bet that after you calculate the fixed costs + variable costs + opportunity costs + economic deadweight loss of all of these solutions, it'd be better to just take the total costs--what is likely 10s to 100s of thousands per person per year--and actually just give it directly to the disabled in the form of a check, and be done with this circus.
ltbarcly3 7y ago
'Full and equal enjoyment' is quoting US code out of context. The law reads "No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation." There is a clear difference between 'discriminating' against someone because of their disability, and a person's inability to participate in something because of a disability. Later in the law discrimination is defined, and it gives an exception that auxiliary aids must be provided, except when providing them would be an undue burden. If I were Dominos (I'm not a lawyer, so I probably have this wrong), based on a reading of the law, I would argue that since Dominos offers pizza ordering through the telephone it is not depriving anyone their services if the website is not accessible. The service Dominos has to provide access to is delivery of pizzas, not the use of their website, which only exists specifically for the purpose of ordering pizzas. Could a library be sued because a specific book doesn't contain braille, when the same book is available in braille? What if Dominos had two phone numbers, one that offered teletype and one that was voice only? This judgement seems to imply that they could be sued unless both their phone numbers offered TDD, because they are depriving people of the use of the other phone number? I'm all for making websites accessible, but I find it hard to believe someone who orders a pizza over the phone is being deprived of 'equal enjoyment' of the pizza.
- couchand 7y ago
  > I'm not a lawyer, so I probably have this wrong IANAL, but you definitely have this wrong, in terms of the history of this case, at least. The DOJ has made clear since their first guidance in 1996 and courts have held repeatedly that the ADA applies to websites in the service of public accommodation. Domino's absolutely has a defense if they are able to demonstrate that their services are "equally" and "effectively" provided to all. The lower court held that they didn't even need to look into the facts at issue, i.e. they don't even need to find out if the phone line provides such service. The court of appeals rightly said that, in fact, it is important to find out if there's evidence of discrimination.
- triceratops 7y ago
patentatt 7y ago
There are zero inferences that can be drawn from the Supreme Court not granting cert on an appeal. The Supreme Court denies the vast majority of appeals they receive, and only take a case in a narrow and not always intuitive set of circumstances. Headline is very misleading.
partiallypro 7y ago
> It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Make sure your content and markup are reasonably semantic. Use standard form components for data entry. On a basic level, yes. But what does the law consider to be reasonable? There are so many degrees of compliance, some of which often go against brand guidelines, against common js libraries, etc.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Bendingo 7y ago
I develop accessible android apps. Between complicated designs, broken android libraries, different talkback behaviours, and vendor bugs, accessibility can be very difficult. The effort we expend on accessibility (including dedicated testers) is massive. Only large organisations can afford to do this.

calvinmorrison 7y ago

And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired. What I find appauling is I need to be disabled to demand a website that doesn't require font.js and 600 trackers to run, that doesn't intercept my scroll wheel or make me use a Google product for captcha. hyper text mark up language is dead. Long live the world wide web.

ncallaway 7y ago
> And at the end of the day developers worldwide like all humans choose to keep a job, maintain their livelihood and avoid getting fired. Well, now, as developers we have more ammunition to backup the moral obligation. Now we can demand the time to validate that a site is compliant with WCAG 2.0, and point to this ruling as a legal mandate to do so.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gnicholas 7y ago

> Despite the somewhat misleading headline, the Supreme Court didn't really say anything new here. A unanimous denial of certiorari (declining to hear the case) sends a pretty strong message to lawyers and their clients. It only takes 4 votes (1 less than majority) to hear a case, so the fact that there were zero justices interested is a clear message. While it is technically possible that there could in the future be a circuit split, which could then be appealed to the SCOTUS, it is unlikely SCOTUS would hear that case. And given what happened today, it is even less likely that a competent lawyer would counsel their client to appeal a similar case up to a federal appeals court (because it looks like it would be a loser of a case). So while the SCOTUS did not affirmatively speak today, their unanimously declining to hear the case does actually say something new, and this is being hailed as a landmark-ish case in the legal accessibility community. FWIW, IAAL, and I run an assistive technology startup.

couchand 7y ago
That's awesome to hear, thanks for clarifying.
Pinckney 7y ago
I don't think we know it was unanimous. The orders list doesn't say anything to that effect, and the justices rarely publicly dissent from denials of cert, so their silence doesn't mean anything. https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m648.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/100719zor_m6...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- gnicholas 7y ago
  You're right that public dissents from cert. denial are not as common as dissents from SCOTUS opinions. However, given the questions presented, the current composition of the Court, and the fact that only 4 justices are needed to grant cert., it still seems unlikely that the Court would rule in favor of a different defendant in a different case. That is, this case presented a novel issue, and it was at a stage where the questions were legal in nature (not factual). That's the perfect opportunity for SCOTUS to take the case if they planned to interpret the ADA as not applying to business' websites. They could hypothetically weigh in on the case after Dominos has a full trial with all the facts, but if they planned to say that as a matter of law the ADA does not apply to Dominoes' website, why would they wait to do so? And since both "sides" (liberal and conservative) of the Court have at least 4 justices right now, either could have independently granted cert. This is especially true for the conservative wing, which is typically viewed (or typically caricatured, depending on your perspective) as being more business-friendly — and which has 5 justices. Regardless, thanks for raising this point. You're right that the absence of a cert. denial dissent does not strictly indicate a unanimous vote.

balls187 7y ago

> full and equal enjoyment I know there is a snarky comment about enjoying Dominoe's pizza... But it is comical that Dominoes championed ordering pizza by tweeting an pizza emoji, but failed to address helping the bling order online.

partiallypro 7y ago
The argument from Domino's was that you could still order over the phone, and thus they weren't discriminating against customers.

chillacy 7y ago

I'm not sure if this changed, but as I recalled, Domino's site was a Flash application with a pretty non-standard UI. Their lack of accessibility may be a consequence of that technical decision.

julianozen 7y ago
Dominoes also literally has a client on every platform in existence from smart tvs to smart assitants to slack. I'm certain they can figure out a viable option with their APIs

pakitan 7y ago

> It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Do you follow the standards? If you show me a web site that you've developed I'll show you a site with multiple violations of WCAG 2.0. Hell, JAWS' own site is littered with WCAG violations! Yes, "accessibility at the basic level" is easy but WCAG 2.0 is not "accessibility at the basic level". It's a huge set of rules that are often unclear and ambiguous. And that's fine because WCAG 2.0 is just something that you should aspire to. But if you start defining accessibility by whether a site conforms to WCAG 2.0 or not, then I can guarantee you that every single popular site is non-accessible. We got sued and believe me it has nothing to do with blind people. Our site is of zero interest to them. Companies are sued by scumbag lawyers, who have made a nice little racket out of this thing. It's really unfortunate that the HN crowd is siding with them, as if they are championing the rights of disabled people. It's all about money.

Mvandenbergh 7y ago
That is a natural consequence of the way in which the United States chooses to enforce rules like this. In some other countries, there are regulators who do this kind of thing and issue relatively small fines and compliance notices. Since the regulator itself is publically funded, it does not need to live off the fine income. In the US, the choice was made instead to create a private right of action and to allow legal fees to be recovered. That means that lawyers who make this their business have to aim high to cover their costs (including from cases they lose) and are no incentivised to let a company off with a compliance notice and a deadline to improve. As a result, there are a certain percentage of ADA cases which are not brought in good faith but that is the system the people have decided they want.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  It's interesting, at least. Usually I would actually say separations of powers are good, as are powers to the judiciary; but you are correct that we do have a problem here with this in the States with frivolous lawsuits and bloodsucking lawyers. On the other hand, regulators pouring bleach on food for the homeless and secret homeless rescue operations to avoid regulators are a real thing. As are hairdressers being shut down, fined and even jailed for things like not having a license to braid hair, or giving free haircuts to the homeless. Excessive regulations also kill jobs and productivity from overzealous and power-tripping regulators. There are horrors on both sides. Honestly, I'd bet that after you calculate the fixed costs + variable costs + opportunity costs + economic deadweight loss of all of these solutions, it'd be better to just take the total costs--what is likely 10s to 100s of thousands per person per year--and actually just give it directly to the disabled in the form of a check, and be done with this circus.

ltbarcly3 7y ago

'Full and equal enjoyment' is quoting US code out of context. The law reads "No individual shall be discriminated against on the basis of disability in the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation by any person who owns, leases (or leases to), or operates a place of public accommodation." There is a clear difference between 'discriminating' against someone because of their disability, and a person's inability to participate in something because of a disability. Later in the law discrimination is defined, and it gives an exception that auxiliary aids must be provided, except when providing them would be an undue burden. If I were Dominos (I'm not a lawyer, so I probably have this wrong), based on a reading of the law, I would argue that since Dominos offers pizza ordering through the telephone it is not depriving anyone their services if the website is not accessible. The service Dominos has to provide access to is delivery of pizzas, not the use of their website, which only exists specifically for the purpose of ordering pizzas. Could a library be sued because a specific book doesn't contain braille, when the same book is available in braille? What if Dominos had two phone numbers, one that offered teletype and one that was voice only? This judgement seems to imply that they could be sued unless both their phone numbers offered TDD, because they are depriving people of the use of the other phone number? I'm all for making websites accessible, but I find it hard to believe someone who orders a pizza over the phone is being deprived of 'equal enjoyment' of the pizza.

couchand 7y ago
> I'm not a lawyer, so I probably have this wrong IANAL, but you definitely have this wrong, in terms of the history of this case, at least. The DOJ has made clear since their first guidance in 1996 and courts have held repeatedly that the ADA applies to websites in the service of public accommodation. Domino's absolutely has a defense if they are able to demonstrate that their services are "equally" and "effectively" provided to all. The lower court held that they didn't even need to look into the facts at issue, i.e. they don't even need to find out if the phone line provides such service. The court of appeals rightly said that, in fact, it is important to find out if there's evidence of discrimination.
triceratops 7y ago

patentatt 7y ago

There are zero inferences that can be drawn from the Supreme Court not granting cert on an appeal. The Supreme Court denies the vast majority of appeals they receive, and only take a case in a narrow and not always intuitive set of circumstances. Headline is very misleading.

partiallypro 7y ago

> It's really not hard to make your websites accessible at a basic level. Follow the standards. Make sure your content and markup are reasonably semantic. Use standard form components for data entry. On a basic level, yes. But what does the law consider to be reasonable? There are so many degrees of compliance, some of which often go against brand guidelines, against common js libraries, etc.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Bendingo 7y ago

I develop accessible android apps. Between complicated designs, broken android libraries, different talkback behaviours, and vendor bugs, accessibility can be very difficult. The effort we expend on accessibility (including dedicated testers) is massive. Only large organisations can afford to do this.