Supreme Court Denies Review in Website Accessibility Case Against Domino’s Pizza
October 9, 2019
Authored by: BCLP, Dan Crane, Merrit Jones, Heather Goldman, Daniel Rockey, Steven Stimell, Jay Zweig and Jennifer Dempsey
Businesses should expect that lawsuits and demand letters alleging that their websites violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) will continue to increase in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s October 7, 2019 decision denying Domino’s Pizza’s (“Domino’s”) petition for a writ of certiorari in the Robles v. Domino’s Pizza case. The Supreme Court’s decision to deny certiorari to Domino’s petition will send the lawsuit back to the United States District Court for the Central District of California to be tried on its merits.
Guillermo Robles (“Robles”) filed this lawsuit in September 2016 alleging, in part, that Domino’s website contained barriers to accessibility in violation of the ADA. Robles alleged that he unsuccessfully tried to order custom pizza online from a nearby Domino’s location. Robles sought, in part, a permanent injunction requiring Domino’s website to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) 2.0.
In March 2017, the District Court dismissed the case, without prejudice, based upon the primary jurisdiction doctrine, which allows courts to stay or dismiss lawsuits pending the resolution of an issue by a government agency, because absent “regulations and technical assistance” from the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), Domino’s due process rights would be violated. The District Court, however, also held that Title III of the ADA applied to Domino’s website.
As we previously reported, on January 15, 2019, the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s order. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the District Court that the ADA applies to Domino’s website and mobile application,