A small group of lawyers has turned website accessibility into a business. They run a scan on a local business site, find the spots where it fails, and file a federal lawsuit. Most owners pay to make it go away. If you own a business with a website in Florida, you are on the list of targets whether you know it or not. Here is the plain version, and where to check it.
The reality
Florida is the number two state in the country for website accessibility lawsuits. There were 629 filed in 2024, and 487 were filed in just the first six months of 2025, which puts the state on pace for close to a thousand this year. You can read the tracker yourself.
Restaurants and retail get hit the hardest. In the first half of 2025, restaurants and food places were about 30% of all filings, and clothing and apparel shops were about 29%. Together that is nearly 6 in 10 of every lawsuit, and there is no revenue floor that keeps a small shop safe. Same source, prior year.
This is already in your backyard. One legally blind woman in Gainesville, Makeda Evans, sued more than 50 local businesses in about a year and a half. She went after names people love, including Satchel’s Pizza and Harry’s Seafood. Most of them paid a private settlement rather than fight. Local reporting covered the whole wave.
It does not take a big mistake to end up on that list. The lawsuits name small things: a photo with no description for a screen reader, a phone number typed as plain text instead of a tappable link, links that open a new tab with no warning. One of those is enough to get named. Do not take my word for any of it. Search “Florida ADA website lawsuit” and read for a few minutes.
What it costs
Settlements for a small-business website case usually run $5,000 to $25,000, and small local shops often settle for $10,000 or less. If you decide to fight instead of settle, your own legal defense runs about $15,000 to $25,000 in lawyer fees alone, on top of the settlement and the cost to actually fix the site. These ranges are broken down here.
Add it up and one of these can run $20,000 to $50,000 once you stack the settlement, your lawyer, and the rebuild. Real numbers from the Gainesville wave: one restaurant said its total cost reached about $30,000, the Uppercrust bakery settled for about $6,500, and Satchel’s Pizza refused a $6,000 offer and spent about $12,000 to $15,000 over three months to get the case dismissed. That story is here.
Here is the part that makes owners angry. The person suing you does not even pocket the money. Under federal ADA law they get no damages, just a court order to fix the site and their lawyer’s fees paid. The whole thing runs on attorney fees, which is exactly why one person can hit 50 shops in a year. Here is the legal explainer.
Two honest notes. Settlements are private agreements, so these are typical reported ranges, not a fixed price list. And the cost is per lawsuit, not per violation. If anyone tells you “you have 47 violations at X dollars each,” they are inventing math to scare you into buying something.
Why widgets don’t save you
You have probably seen the little accessibility button that floats in the corner of a site, the one that pops open a menu of text-size and contrast options. accessiBe and UserWay are the big names. Owners bolt one on and think they are covered. They are not.
In 2024, 722 website lawsuits named sites that already had one of these overlays running. accessiBe was named in 258 of them, UserWay in 187. The counts are in the same annual report. The widget did not stop the lawsuit. In some cases the plaintiff points to the broken overlay as part of the complaint, so it makes things worse, not better.
The government agrees. The FTC ordered accessiBe to pay one million dollars for falsely claiming its one line of code could make any website compliant. Read the FTC order. A script you paste on top of a site is not a fix. The only thing that holds up is a site built right underneath, in the code, from the start.
The honest truth
There is a lot of noise and a lot of fear-selling in this space. Here is the straight version, with nothing dressed up.
- There is no such thing as an ADA certificate. No government office issues one. Anyone selling you an “ADA certified” badge is selling a sticker, not protection.
- The standard courts use is WCAG 2.1 AA. Those are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and U.S. courts reference WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the benchmark in these cases. That is the bar to build to.
- If you are open to the public, you are liable. The Department of Justice says the ADA applies to what a business offers on the web, and there is no small-business exemption. Straight from ADA.gov.
- This is federal, not a Florida state law. It is the ADA, Title III, filed in Florida’s federal courts. Anyone who says “Florida law requires it” is wrong about how it works.
- There is usually no warning. These do not arrive as a friendly notice you can fix first. They show up as a filed federal lawsuit. The Gainesville owners found out the hard way.
So the honest position is simple. Nobody can make you “lawsuit-proof,” and I will not pretend to. What you can do is build your site to the recognized standard, test it, and keep the proof that you did. That is what lowers your risk.
What I am offering
A free accessibility audit, and a free rebuild for the first few who want it.
- Step one, the free audit. I run your site against the WCAG 2.1 AA checkpoints and send you a plain, no-jargon report of where it fails and why it matters. No cost, no obligation, no sales pressure.
- Step two, the free rebuild. For a limited number of businesses each month, I rebuild your site at no cost. It is custom-coded, built and tested to WCAG 2.1 AA, and faster than what you have now. No Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress bloat. Your content, your brand, and your domain stay yours, always.
- The one honest catch. Accessibility is not one and done. Post one new photo without a description and you can slip right back into the same risk. Keeping a site built and tested to WCAG 2.1 AA over time is the only part I charge for, a simple monthly, and only if you want it. The audit and the rebuild are the gift.
Why give away the rebuild? Because the fastest way to show you I do good work is to do it, not to talk about it. I only take a handful of these a month since I build every one myself, so if it matters to you, reach out sooner rather than later.
Straight answers
Am I really liable? I am just a small local shop.
Yes. The Department of Justice says the ADA applies to what a business offers on the web, and there is no small-business exemption. Any business open to the public is covered. A simple local site is a valid target, and the lawsuits name small technical things like a missing image description or a phone number that is not tappable.
Can I just add an accessibility widget and be safe?
No. In 2024, 722 website lawsuits named sites that already had one of these overlays running. The FTC fined the biggest widget vendor, accessiBe, one million dollars for claiming its code could make any website compliant. A widget can even be used against you as part of the complaint. The only real fix is a site built right.
Is this a Florida law?
No. It is federal law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title III, filed in Florida's federal courts. It is not a Florida state statute. Anyone who tells you Florida law requires it has it wrong.
Do you guarantee I will not get sued?
No, and you should walk away from anyone who does. No honest person can promise that. What I can do is build and test your site to WCAG 2.1 AA and give you the dated audit that proves the work was done. That paper trail is the real protection, and it reduces your risk.
A quick, honest disclaimer. I am a web designer, not a lawyer, and this page is information, not legal advice. VENTR is not a law firm, does not provide legal advice, and does not represent you in any claim. For legal questions about your own situation, talk to a licensed attorney. Every number on this page links to its source so you can check my work.