Missouri lawmakers pass bill aimed at curbing abusive ADA website lawsuits

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo (KQTV) -- Missouri lawmakers passed a bill that will stop abusive lawsuits on website accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

House Bill 1694 comes amid a continued rise in ADA compliance lawsuits across the United States.

According to the Home Furnishings Association, more than 4,000 accessibility lawsuits involving websites and mobile apps were filed in U.S. courts in 2024, continuing an upward trend.

Missouri State Representative Mazzie Christensen (R-District 2) had a family member contact her about their friend being sued for having a website that was not ADA-compliant.

Christensen said lawyers would contact small businesses about their website not being ADA-compliant, many of them being out of state.

"Where it becomes frivolous is that they weren’t even caring if the business would fix the issue," she said. "Some of these businesses could take months and months to get it fixed because (of) going through and trying to manually fix it. That’s where it became frivolous; it was not really about making sure people were accommodated, it was more about the money."

The bill was needed to help small businesses that had corrected their websites but still faced lawsuits requiring them to pay thousands of dollars.

"This was primarily going after restaurant owners, and as many of you know, our restaurant industry has been hard for guys and gals since COVID," she said. "Making sure that we still have our great restaurants are a priority, but also making sure individuals access the website as well."

The bill still focuses on getting websites fixed and ensuring businesses have enough time to make the changes.

"Business owners were getting these letters, and they said, 'You have 10 days to fix it.' Some of these restaurants have no ability to even get a website developer in 10 days. Let's do it within 90 days, if the business owner gets it within 90 days, works with the website developer," she said. "After that, if a lawyer is still pushing, that is considered frivolous."

While drafting the bill, Christensen wanted to ensure the rights of individuals protected under the ADA were not violated.

"We want compliance. We want to make sure small businesses are being accessible. This is what this bill does. Let the individual know, let the plaintiff know, and let the lawyer know as well so nobody's rights are violated," she said.

EcomBack is a business that helps companies prevent and defend against website accessibility lawsuits by auditing the accessibility status of their websites.

Nayan Padrai, president of EcomBack, said the ADA was never intended to be a profit center for law firms and has been abused.

"I'm all for any bill that allows for accessibility to be advanced while businesses receive protection from abuse from plaintiff law firms," he said.

Plenty of tools are available to help small businesses ensure their accessibility, but they will need assistance

"We offer free audits. They can come to EcomBack and get a free audit done. We offer free consultations," he said. "There’s software that helps you check at least basic accessibility issues."

In addition to software testing, manual testing should also be conducted.

“Software testing is only 30% to 40% effective. You need to manually test as well, where a company like ours comes in. Businesses are welcome to set up an appointment with us online. We’ll check what the issues are and help them understand where their exposure is, and improvements can be made," he said.

House Bill 1694 will take effect on August 28.