JP Licks should make their website compliant but they shouldn't be required to do so. A website isn't a physical location and it's a private business.

I'm in favor of accessibility laws but this is an extortion racket plain and simple.

Web dev here, making websites accessible is drilled into us as a basic function. It's not difficult, and not doing so opens the site's operator up to liability (like in this case), and hurts the site's page ranking in Google. It's not going the extra mile, this is Website 101. Whoever was supposed to QC the site failed hard here.

Bad design is not illegal

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 7:39pm.

According to other articles it's unclear if they are in violation of laws as most small companies would rather pay a settlement then pay litigation. (Which is a major problem with the legal system.)

This is what people are

By tofu on Mon, 01/15/2018 - 10:43am.

This is what people are missing. "Best practice/design" vs. "required by law"

Another web dev here. If you

By anon on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 7:53pm.

Another web dev here. If you're running an ecommerce company, then an accessibility is a by-product of a well made website. If you run a local ice cream shop, then upgrading your website to make it accessible is not that high on the list of priorities.

JP Licks should be angry at

By anon on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 6:57pm.

JP Licks should be angry at whoever did their website. This should be baked into the cake.

Serial ADA litigants

By Matt_J on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 2:26pm.

Are such a great use of the judicial system. IMO. Next to ambulance chasers. If they really cared they would work with the business to become compliant, rather than going directly for a cash settlement.

Lawyer Scum

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 2:32pm.

Wonder if the person even cares or if some scumbag lawyer asked to use their name in exchange for 20% of settlements.

Not likely

By anon on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 4:35pm.

https://nypost.com/2017/10/22/attorney-exploits-the-blind-to-sue-busines...

Wow, it's even worse

By BostonDog on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 6:17pm.

According to that article the blind man only gets $500 per lawsuit.

And yes, it's the same guy

By perruptor on Mon, 01/15/2018 - 6:15am.

The article anon linked to is talking about the same C.K. Lee who's suing JP Licks. Doesn't look like the blind guy gets anything like 20%. Scumbag lawyer, you bet.

ADA

By blues_lead on Mon, 01/15/2018 - 7:57pm.

The structure of the ADA doesn't create any government enforcement agency or grant an existing enforcement agency power to enforce ADA rules. The enforcement mechanism was meant to be by litigation. That's fine if you don't like that, but direct your ire at the politicians who wrote the law and the ones who haven't changed it, rather than the litigants.

I wonder if he even tried

By Tim Mc. on Sun, 01/14/2018 - 4:29pm.

I wonder if he even tried asking them to update their website first, or went straight to lawsuit...

I was able to find all store locations and hours using Lynx

By Ron Newman on Mon, 01/15/2018 - 12:30am.

which is a very old text-only browser.

I'd be way more impressed

By Roman on Wed, 01/17/2018 - 5:11pm.

if you found the locations using only awk, grep, and nc.

Close enough?

By Tim Mc. on Wed, 02/07/2018 - 8:56pm.

timmc@puter:~$ echo $'GET / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.jplicks.com\r\n' | nc -N www.jplicks.com 80 | grep 'Where to Find us'

<area shape="rect" coords="498,24,574,82" href="find_us.html" alt="Where to Find us" />

timmc@puter:~$ echo $'GET /find_us.html HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.jplicks.com\r\n' | nc -N www.jplicks.com 80 | grep Somerville

imgText =' Davis Square 4A College Ave. Somerville MA 02144 617-666-5079 Sunday - Thursday 11am - 11pm Friday - Saturday 11am - midnight'; imgText =' Assembly Row 611 Assembly Row Somerville MA 02145 617-764-4960Monday - Thursday 7am - 11pm Friday 7am - midnight Saturday 8am - midnight Sunday 8am - 11pm ';

Being right is not the point

By greg on Mon, 01/15/2018 - 7:45pm.

It really doesn't matter if the JP Licks site is appropriately accessible. The cost of settling is typically much lower than the cost of "winning", which is why so many companies settle. Being right in court is often useless. Tort reform would resolve this issue but there are too many lawyers in politics for that.

Tort reform is a good idea

By bibliotequetress on Wed, 02/07/2018 - 1:40pm.

Tort reform is a good idea only if appropriately strong & well enforced government oversight exists. There are too many fatcats donating to politics for that.

"Tort reform" is generally

By Steeve on Wed, 02/07/2018 - 2:01pm.

"Tort reform" is generally code for "use these extremely rare cases to say that all torts are meaningless to strip the rights of average people against corporations".

And even in cases that are legit, use PR to influence public discourse about cases, which McDonalds used to great effect in the early 1990s. Their negligence led to an old woman getting third degree burns. Your average Joe, however, will tell you it was a case of someone pouring coffee on themselves to get rich, but in actuality all the plaintiff ever wanted was her medical bills covered (and to have them stop serving their coffee at temperatures that would cause third degree burns), to the tune of about $20,000. McDonalds decided it was only worth $800. The jury, upon actually hearing the actual facts of the case, decided she should be compensated in the millions.

Blind New Yorker charges small Boston ice-cream chain's Web site discriminates against him

Comments

Don't most people get

Meanwhile

Right

Exactly.

Standards are not laws

Nope