Lawsuit: Wellington Hotel Excludes Blind Individual from Website Services

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Wellington Hotel Co., Inc. is on the receiving end of a proposed class action lawsuit filed by a blind New York man who alleges the company’s website is unlawfully designed in a way that is incompatible with the screen-reading technology used by blind internet users. The plaintiff claims he attempted to navigate www.Wellingtonhotel.com to make a room and dinner reservation at New York City’s Wellington Hotel, but was unable to complete the transaction due to various access barriers. According to the complaint, the website lacks alternative text on graphics, accessible drop-down menus, navigation links, adequate prompting and labeling, and the ability to use a keyboard rather than a mouse. The suit further argues that some of the site’s links contain no text or are redundant, resulting in needless navigation for blind users.

Citing alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the suit claims the defendant knowingly chose not to implement existing and readily available technology to make its website accessible to the visually impaired. “Businesses can make choices (unlike visually impaired individuals),” the complaint reads, “and can either make their business inclusive, or they can make them effective Zones of Discrimination and exclude the visually-impaired.”