As you might've heard, Dominos' appeal of United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision was rejected by Supreme Court. Dominos argued that without specific accessibility guidelines for website and mobile apps, the lawsuit brought by one Guillermo Robles should be dismissed. The Supreme Court thought otherwise and now it looks like Dominos and Robles might go to trial over this one.
Why did Dominos challenge the lawsuit, might you ask? Well, for one they have an in house counsel and other resources to handle exactly this kind of legal challenges. In other words, they cannot not fight it - it is their job. And I have a hint that if this case does go to trial, the legal resources of Fortune's #692 corporation will probably outweigh Mr. Robles' and this matter will get settled amiably out of court.
Secondly, while the original case was about not being able to order delicious pizza via their website www.dominos.com or app, the precedent could be set for Dominos' other online properties - biz.dominos.com, anyware.dominos.com, jobs.dominos.com, realestate.dominos.com, and dominosweddingregistry.com for those craving a pizza wedding (hey, no judgements here), and other consumer-facing electronic media and communications.
It will be interesting to see the outcome of the trial, or more likely a settlement, in this particular case, and for website ADA compliance industry in general. The worst case scenario for Dominos is that some years down the line, and after prolonged legal wrangling, they make their website and app ADA compliant without admitting any wrongdoing. This would mean that general language in DOJ guidelines from 1990s can continue to be interpreted to apply to websites and mobile apps without clearly defining any specific benchmarks for online accessibility on federal level. The best case scenario for Dominos is that it manages to dismiss the case on the grounds of DOJ not providing specific guidelines for website ADA. Which, consequently, might not be a bad thing as it could lead to clear federally mandated website ADA standards that we can all follow and implement. Either way, website ADA compliance remains in the spotlight, and that is a good thing for everyone working in this space.