Dominos Doesn’t Think Websites Need to be Accessible

Pizza giant Dominos is asking the Supreme Court to say that websites don’t have to be accessible.

While this may sound like a strange request, it all leads back to a blind man named Guillermo Robles who attempted to order a custom pizza from Domino’s at least two times in recent years, using the company’s website and mobile app.

According to Robles, despite using screen reading software, he wasn’t able to order the food, because the website is not accessible to blind people.

Robles filed a lawsuit against the company in 2016, alleging that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 law that requires businesses to make accommodations for those with disabilities, applied to the websites and apps of businesses with physical locations.

While a federal appeals court agreed, it is now time for the Supreme Court to decide.

According to Domino’s, these kind of lawsuits are a nuisance, and says that the federal government has not yet put out rules governing how to make their web platforms ADA compliant.

“If businesses are allowed to say, ‘We do not have to make our websites accessible to blind people,’ that would be shutting blind people out of the economy in the 21st century,” remarked Christopher Danielsen, a representative for the National Federation of the Blind.