ADA suits against accessiBe customers

analysisAn ADA class action against David A. Hidalgo, M.D., P.C., a New York plastic-surgery practice, was filed in the Eastern District of New York on December 28, 2023 (No. 1:23-cv-09553). The practice moved to dismiss in September 2024 with an affidavit of its web developer, a list of accessibility adjustments and a compliance report, and its reply stated that its website used accessiBe. On January 21, 2025 Judge Frederic Block granted the motion under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction: the plaintiff had not adequately pleaded standing, and the request for an injunction was moot. The order says the audit and adjustments described by the developer, including menu changes, the site's use of an accessibility widget and a plan for monthly monitoring, were enough to assure the court that the alleged issues would not recur; it does not mention accessiBe or accessWidget by name. ^{1 2 3}

analysisaccessiBe presented the case as an endorsement of its product. A company blog page, dated as last updated on November 14, 2024, before the order was issued, says that with accessWidget and accessiBe's litigation support team "the Eastern District Court of New York recognized the widget as a valid accessibility measure and dismissed the lawsuit"; a March 2025 post says a federal court "affirmed" that accessWidget can demonstrate WCAG adherence and that no accessiBe customer had ever lost a case because accessWidget failed to meet accessibility standards; and an April 8, 2025 sponsored article on a legal news site by its chief legal officer Yaniv Aronowich was headlined as a court's recognition of an AI-powered solution as part of a valid accessibility strategy. These are company statements: the court dismissed the case under Rule 12(b)(1) on standing and mootness, referring to an accessibility widget only generically and without naming accessiBe. ^{4 5 6}

analysisOther courts examined accessiBe material directly. In September 2021 Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Southern District of New York refused to dismiss an ADA suit against Grace Products, Inc. as moot: the company said it had engaged accessiBe as a third-party accessibility consultant to bring its site into compliance and audit it monthly, but the plaintiff's expert testified that the site still had barriers and that the consultant's audit report was "severely deficient". In a suit against The Spice & Tea Exchange Distribution, LLC (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:22-cv-07535), Judge Paul G. Gardephe adopted a magistrate judge's recommendation on December 3, 2024 and denied the motion to dismiss: the accessiBe compliance report "states that the Website is compliant" but does not identify the auditor's qualifications or explain its methodology or the basis for its conclusion. On October 15, 2024 the New York Supreme Court in Queens County found, in a suit against PhotonLight.com, Inc. (Index No. 716741/2023), that the accessiBe audit the defendant relied on concerned a different website, genopalate.com, and was irrelevant; the plaintiff had called accessiBe merely an "automated overlay widget". ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisCourt records show other customers citing accessiBe: U.S. Wings, Inc. said it had bought a one-year partnership (S.D.N.Y., 2021); Lemongrass Holdings LLC relied on an accessiBe audit (S.D. Fla., 2023); Pure Green NYC Wholesale Corp. said it used the accessiBe interface, and the plaintiff answered with the Overlay Fact Sheet, a report by Karl Groves and accessiBe's terms of service (E.D.N.Y. No. 1:23-cv-04247); and Exit 9 Brooklyn, Inc. filed an accessiBe accessibility statement in December 2025. The courts' conclusions on these submissions are not in the retained excerpts, and accessiBe was not a party to any of these cases. In an ADA class action against DL1961 Premium Denim, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:22-cv-05837) the defendant filed declarations of Shir Ekerling in September and October 2022 attaching a compliance overview, receipts, a technology overview and audits. Urbani Truffles USA Corporation brought a third-party complaint and requested a summons to accessiBe Inc. in August 2024 (S.D.N.Y. No. 1:24-cv-03747); the outcome of that claim is not shown, and the case closed on December 13, 2024. SoulFlora Inc. attached its accessiBe purchase invoice and application to a motion in an October 2024 suit (No. 1:24-cv-07875). In a suit against Buffalo Jackson Trading Co., LLC (No. 1:24-cv-04878) the defendant's listed counsel included Martin Simon Krezalek, who also represents accessiBe Inc. in the class action; the docket does not show who engaged counsel or any role of accessiBe in that case. ^{3 5 6 7}

analysisAfter the FTC order the case itself entered customers' litigation. In April 2026 the defendant in an Illinois ADA case, American Dental Associates, LTD. (N.D. Ill. No. 1:26-cv-01084), argued that "The FTC Enforcement Action Against accessiBe Does Not Undermine Defendant's Remediation", and a February 2025 series of ADA complaints in the Western District of Pennsylvania against online retailers, including Wine Racks America, Inc. and House of Outdoors Inc., contained a section headed "AccessiBe's Deceptive and Misleading Conduct". accessiBe was not a party to these suits. ^{5 8}

analysisEarlier suits named the overlay itself as a source of barriers. In an October 2020 suit against Masterbuilt Manufacturing the plaintiff alleged that the $49-a-month accessiBe plug-in installed on September 2, 2020 made the site less accessible; in a January 2021 suit against Eyebobs, LLC in the Western District of Pennsylvania the complaint used videos showing the accessiBe accessibility statement trapping a screen-reader user and the widget failing on pop-ups, and the plaintiff relied on Karl Groves, who analysed 50 accessiBe sites and testified to thousands of problems. Complaints also cited accessiBe in a 2020 suit against Upright Technologies, whose site used it, and in a May 2021 suit against Dorai Homes, alleging that the site remained inaccessible despite the overlay, which in some instances made navigation harder. These are plaintiffs' allegations, reported by a U.S. network news report and by Roselli; accessiBe was not a party, and the outcomes of the last two suits are not in the record. accessiBe denied that Eyebobs and Masterbuilt were using its product at the times identified in the suits; its head of marketing Gil Magen said in 2021 that accessiBe had found Eyebobs' site compliant and that Eyebobs had declined its litigation help, while Eyebobs said accessiBe had not responded to requests to meet its lawyers and that it no longer worked with accessiBe. According to the May 2021 news report the Masterbuilt case was settled and voluntarily dismissed in March 2021 and the Eyebobs case was referred to mediation; Roselli reported in October 2021 that it ended in a settlement. ^{1 2}

analysisCritics and plaintiffs have also counted suits against overlay users: the Overlay False Claims site said that more than 200 companies were sued in 2021 despite having an overlay, 95 of them with accessiBe on the site when sued; the class action complaint cited at least 91 such suits in ten federal districts; and a June 2025 UsableNet report, as quoted by an agency blog, counted 659 of 2,019 website accessibility suits in the first half of 2025 against companies that already had a widget, across all vendors. The methods behind these counts by critics, plaintiffs and a competitor are not shown. At a 2021 Digital Accessibility Legal Summit session, as transcribed by Roselli, lawyers asked whether overlays reduce litigation risk answered "They absolutely do not", because overlays do not actually fix websites; that is practitioners' opinion, not a court finding. ^{3 4 5 1}