ADA lawsuit costs are WAY more than just the settlement

When performing accessibility risk assessment, there are many costs you must include in your calculations in addition to plaintiff payouts

Karl Groves wrote an amazing article this week on the ROI on Accessibility. This is a topic near and dear to my heart and one I am considering for my PhD thesis since Accessibility ROI is largely only discussed in warm and fuzzy terms about how it will help organizations “achieve their values” and “accelerate their mission” not in hard and fast terms such as the benefits of doing it and the cost of NOT doing it.

I thought I would offer a more expanded look based on my 15 years of experience on the costs associated with defending a digital accessibility lawsuit or action from the Department of Justice.

Reputation / Brand Harm

While the remainder of the costs identified in this article have hard figure ranges attached to them, this one does not. No one knows the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) costs of all the people with disabilities (including me) that have stopped eating at Domino’s as a result of them continuing to litigate an unwinnable case? Who knows the loss of ticket sales to NBA events? Or customers shifting their purchasing…