In February 2026, Action News Jax investigated a growing wave of ADA lawsuits targeting Jacksonville businesses, not over wheelchair ramps or parking spaces, but over their websites. Cowford Chophouse, one of Jacksonville’s most well-known restaurants, was among the businesses named. The allegation: their website was inaccessible to people with disabilities.

They’re far from alone. European Street Café, Al’s Pizza, Dockside Seafood, and at least 35 other Jacksonville businesses have been hit with similar suits. And the numbers nationally are staggering.

The Scale of the Problem

According to the Action News Jax investigation, more than 15,332 federal ADA website lawsuits have been filed in just four years. Nearly 4,000 were filed in 2025 alone, and the pace is accelerating.

Here’s the pattern that should concern every business owner: 90% of these lawsuits are filed by just 16 law firms. This isn’t random. It’s a systematic, high-volume legal strategy targeting businesses with non-compliant websites.

In Jacksonville specifically, attorney Aleksandra Kravets has filed over 200 ADA website lawsuits with a single named plaintiff, Jonathan Drummond, appearing as the plaintiff in dozens of cases across Northeast Florida. The suits typically claim that a visually impaired user couldn’t access basic information like menus, addresses, or business hours on the company’s website.

How These Lawsuits Work

The mechanics are straightforward and effective:

1. A plaintiff (often the same individual across many suits) visits a business website using assistive technology like a screen reader
2. They document specific barriers: images without alt text, menus that can’t be navigated by keyboard, information that a screen reader can’t interpret
3. An attorney files suit under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination in "places of public accommodation"
4. The business faces a choice: spend $10,000–$25,000 fighting the suit in court, or settle for $5,000–$15,000 and agree to fix the website

Most businesses settle. It’s cheaper. And that’s exactly what makes this model profitable for the firms filing these suits at scale.

As the Action News Jax report noted, the lawsuits themselves are technically legal. Courts have increasingly ruled that websites do qualify as places of public accommodation under the ADA. The Department of Justice issued formal guidance in 2022 confirming this interpretation.

What Makes a Website ADA Non-Compliant

The most common violations cited in these lawsuits, and the issues most likely to get your business sued, include:

• Missing alt text on images. Screen readers can’t describe what an image shows without descriptive alt attributes. This is the single most common violation.
• Inaccessible navigation menus. Dropdown menus that only work with a mouse and can’t be operated via keyboard leave keyboard-only and screen reader users stranded.
• No keyboard focus indicators. When a user tabs through your site, there should be a visible indicator showing which element is currently focused. Without this, keyboard navigation is effectively blind.
• Poor color contrast. Text that doesn’t meet minimum contrast ratios against its background is difficult or impossible to read for users with low vision.
• Inaccessible PDFs and documents. Restaurant menus, price lists, and brochures uploaded as flat image PDFs can’t be read by screen readers.
• Missing form labels. Contact forms, booking forms, and signup forms without proper `<label>` elements are unusable for screen reader users.
• No skip navigation link. Users who rely on screen readers have to listen to your entire header and navigation on every single page load without a "Skip to main content" link.

WCAG 2.1 Level AA: The Standard Courts Use

When judges evaluate ADA website compliance, they almost universally reference the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, a set of technical standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

WCAG is built on four principles. Your website must be:

• Perceivable: Information must be presentable in ways all users can perceive. This means alt text for images, captions for videos, and sufficient color contrast.
• Operable: Interface elements must be operable by all users. Every function available by mouse must also work by keyboard. Navigation must be logical and predictable.
• Understandable: Content and interface behavior must be understandable. Forms should have clear labels, error messages should be descriptive, and navigation should be consistent.
• Robust: Content must be robust enough to be interpreted by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. This means clean, semantic HTML and proper ARIA attributes.

Meeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the strongest legal defense a business can have against an ADA website lawsuit. It’s the benchmark courts look for.

What Your Business Should Do Right Now

Don’t wait for a demand letter. Here’s your accessibility audit checklist:

Images & Media

• Every image has descriptive alt text (not "image1.jpg," but actual descriptions)
• Decorative images use empty alt attributes (`alt=""`) so screen readers skip them
• Videos have captions or transcripts

Navigation & Keyboard Access

• Every link, button, and form field is reachable via the Tab key
• A visible focus indicator (like an outline or highlight) shows which element is active
• A "Skip to main content" link appears as the first focusable element
• Dropdown menus can be opened and navigated by keyboard

Visual Design

• Text meets minimum contrast ratios: 4.5:1 for normal text, 3:1 for large text
• Information isn’t conveyed by color alone (e.g., error states also use icons or text)
• Text can be resized to 200% without breaking the layout

Forms

• Every input has a visible `<label>` element properly associated with it
• Required fields are marked with both visual indicators and `aria-required` attributes
• Error messages clearly identify which field has the problem and how to fix it

Structure & Semantics

• Pages use proper heading hierarchy (one H1, followed by H2s, H3s in order)
• Content is organized with semantic HTML (`<nav>`, `<main>`, `<footer>`, `<section>`)
• Data tables use proper `<th>` headers

The Business Case Beyond Lawsuits

Legal protection is reason enough, but ADA compliance delivers real business value:

• Better SEO performance. Accessible websites are inherently better structured for search engines. Alt text, semantic HTML, proper headings, and clean code are all SEO best practices. Google rewards them.
• AI search visibility. AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews rely on well-structured, semantically clear content. Accessible websites are exactly what these systems are built to read and recommend.
• Expanded audience. Over 61 million American adults live with a disability. An inaccessible website turns away roughly 26% of the adult population.
• Improved user experience for everyone. Keyboard navigation helps power users. Captions help people in noisy environments. High contrast helps everyone reading on a phone in bright sunlight. Accessibility improvements benefit all users.
• Brand trust and reputation. Demonstrating that your business serves everyone builds genuine goodwill and differentiates you from competitors who cut corners.

Don’t Wait for the Lawsuit

The Jacksonville legal landscape described in the Action News Jax investigation isn’t going away. If anything, the volume of ADA website lawsuits is increasing year over year. The law firms filing these suits have built efficient, scalable operations, and they’re actively looking for non-compliant websites.

The good news: compliance is achievable. It doesn’t require rebuilding your website from scratch. It requires an audit, a clear remediation plan, and ongoing attention to accessibility as you update your site.

At First Coast Marketing, every website we build meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards from day one. We implement proper semantic HTML, keyboard navigation with visible focus indicators, alt text on every image, accessible forms, and screen reader compatibility, because accessibility isn’t an add-on. It’s a foundation.

If you’re not sure whether your website is compliant, [check out our ADA Compliance commitment](/ada-compliance) or reach out for an accessibility audit. It’s significantly cheaper than a lawsuit.