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Lola Maroun
As the world increasingly becomes digital in everyday life, whether due to improvements in technology or the coronavirus pandemic, the concept of digital inclusion and web accessibility is a growing concern for many individuals and businesses. About 15% of the world population and more than 20% of that of the American population currently live with a form of disability. Thankfully, like in America, many countries have now ratified their non-discrimination and digital accessibility laws to include the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as a standard to follow in making websites and applications accessible to people with disabilities. Most international web accessibility laws now demand websites and applications are perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust enough to work for people with disabilities.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 have continuously referenced the WCAG 2.0 AA standard over the years. Non-conformance with WCAG standards is similar to not providing equal access to disabled users of your website which then triggered web accessibility lawsuits against such businesses. It is, unfortunately, true that the threat of a lawsuit has been a major reason many organizations make the effort to make their websites accessible. Many disabled users and advocates have championed this course over the years leading to high-profile web accessibility lawsuits. Here are the largest prominent cases we hope businesses (large and small) can learn from.
The lawsuit alleged Target of violating the California Unruh Civil Rights Act (California Civil Code Section 51 et. seq.), California Disabled Persons Act (California Civil Code Section 54 et. seq.), and The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)- accessibility laws that require businesses and any space to be accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities.
One of the high-profile cases in web accessibility happened In 2015 when the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University before the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The association alleged Harvard and MIT of violating U.S. accessibility laws (the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 508) by not providing appropriately accurate and comprehensive captioning for online course materials (video and audio files). This simply denies people who are deaf and hard of hearing equal access to free online programming.
In one of the first ADA website compliance lawsuits that established that accessibility should include online properties just as physical businesses, the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) filed a lawsuit against the online television and movie streaming giant Netflix in Massachusetts in 2012. This was to exempt customers with hearing impairments or deafness from their online services.
Winn-Dixie had to make its website compliant with WCAG 2.0 AA standards and set aside $250,000. Courts also require Winn-Dixie to ensure annual training for their employees on website accessibility, require third-party content on the site to be accessible, and adopt a web accessibility policy.
This 2014 case represents the first where the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened in accessibility regarding mobile apps and web pages. H&R Block entered into a consent decree with the DOJ and the plaintiffs which demanded it pay $100,000 in damages and make the website and apps accessible by following WCAG 2.0 AA before the 2015 tax season. H&R Block was also made to appoint a web accessibility coordinator and offer web accessibility training to employees.
The settlement was reached with Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc. following a lawsuit, which alleged Facebook made users' data available to third parties without their permission and claimed the platform did not monitor or enforce third-party access to the data they received. That includes the collection of data by now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which went on to be used for political advertising on the platform.
An email sent to Facebook account holders said that the change affects individuals who deleted one or more Facebook accounts in the class period of May 24, 2007 and Dec. 22, 2022 before creating a new Facebook account in the same period.
In addition to providing some personal information, as well has the preferred method of payment, class-action members will be asked to submit their Facebook username, along with any phone numbers and email addresses associated with the account.
Each eligible claimant will be assigned "one point for each month" they had an activated Facebook account during that window. Once the total number of claimants and their points have been determined, along with the total settlement fund amount, each person will then receive a designated amount, multiplied by their total number of points.
As I was driving the long stretch of Highway 89, from the Great Falls airport to the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Mont., to meet with Elouise Cobell, I wondered how many miles she had driven over the course of her lengthy court battle known as Cobell v. (in succession) Babbitt, Norton, Kempthorne and Salazar. How many miles had she logged on planes to and from Washington, D.C., where she was holding the federal government accountable for its mismanagement of billions held in Indian Trust Funds?
They would not allow Indian people to hunt or carry arms because they wanted them to be dependent on the Indian agent. And so people just hung around and waited for their rations. The rations were diverted, black-marketed, and the women and children and men had to stay confined without any means to hunt. As a result, 500 Blackfeet Indians starved to death. And the government just dug big, open-pit graves and threw them in and covered it up.
It was for the Mary Johnsons and the Mad Dog Kennerlys of Indian Country that Cobell fought so long and so hard. And it was by no small coincidence that the woman who was holding the U.S. government accountable, had a knack for numbers.
In 1994 Congress passed the Indian Trust Reform Act and the Department of Interior appointed a Special Trustee to help remedy the problems in both the Tribal and IIM (Individual Indian Monies) Accounts. Two years later, however, nothing had changed. A chance encounter with Attorney General Janet Reno, however, changed everything.
On June 10, 1996, Cobell, along with the Native American Rights Fund and lead attorney Dennis Gingold filed a class-action lawsuit against the United States Department of Interior for the mismanagement of the Indian Trust Funds belonging to over 300,000 individual tribal members, the largest class-action lawsuit ever filed against the United States government.
When Cobell filed the lawsuit, she expected it to take about three years. Instead, it languished in the courts for 15 long years. On one of her many flights to D.C. she was asked by a fellow passenger what she did for a living.
The Cobell settlement included $1.5 billion for the members of the class, $1.9 billion for a Land Consolidation Program and $60 million for a college scholarship fund for Indian youth. It is the largest government settlement ever awarded in the history of the United States.
Imagine the celebration that took place after winning a 30-year battle with the most powerful government in the world! But for Cobell, there would be no celebration until after government checks were received by the Indian Trust beneficiaries.
Filming for the documentary began in 2004 at the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. The film is now in post-production for a theatrical release scheduled at the end of 2013. For more information visit: www.asmallmeasureofjustice.com or contact Melinda Janko at Mja...@aol.com.
Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
To file a class-action lawsuit, first, have a lawyer look at your case to determine whether it is credible and if you have a chance at winning. This will help in determining if other cases on the issue exist, looking at past similar cases to gauge the outcome, whether or not a statute of limitations applies, if others have also been impacted, and if it is the overall right course of action.
The next step would be to file the complaint. The complaint will include all of the details regarding the class action, such as the individuals affected, the demands, the specific problem, and so on. The final step would then be a judge having to certify the class action based on all of the information provided.
The amount of money you can get from a class-action lawsuit varies widely. It depends on the number of individuals that make up the lawsuit and the amount that the courts deem an appropriate sum. The proceeds of the settlement are not proportioned out equally. Lawyers get a large percentage, and then those that were impacted the most. The money you receive can range from a few hundred dollars to millions of dollars depending on many factors.
There is no official number on how many people are needed for a class-action lawsuit; however, a judge is unlikely to move ahead with certification unless there are at least a few dozen. The more people the better but even a group of 20 could be enough for a class-action lawsuit depending on the case.
A class-action waiver is a document that seeks to prevent an individual from the right of filing a class-action lawsuit. Class-action waivers can be stipulated in various contracts, such as employee and customer contracts, that large corporations would use to prevent any possible class-action litigation.
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