This Week in Accessibility: People with Disabilities as Whistleblowers

Can people with disabilities sue as whistleblowers when government contractors fail to deliver accessible goods and services? The short answer appears to be yes.

Golden three-dimensional human cartoon figure blowing into an oversized whistle attached to a neckloop while standing on a gavel pad with a gavel behind it.

The phases of accessibility lawsuits as I see them:

Phase 1: PwDs suing website owners (2006-current)

Phase 2: Employees with disabilities suing employers (2018-current)

Phase 3: PwDs suing Contractors who developed digital properties that should have been accessible, but weren’t (2019)

Less than a month ago, I wrote about a case where Hertz was suing Accenture over Accenture’s failure to create a usable website and mobile app, and failing to deliver items that were specified in the contract. The items Hertz requested are very common requests for companies who wanted to implement accessibility.

This case takes a different approach, but with a similar outcome. First, a couple of short (hopefully understandable) legal definitions:

1. Constructive fraud describes a situation where entity gained an unfair advantage by deceitful methods. It is different from actual fraud in that intent is not required.
2. Qui tam lawsuits are a type of whistleblower lawsuit that is brought under the False Claims Act…