Kate Spade Website Customer’s Disability Bias Suit Advances

A visually impaired shopper got the go-ahead for a proposed class action under the Americans with Disabilities Act, alleging Tapestry Inc. failed to make its Kate Spade website accessible to sight-impaired customers.

Title III of the law requires that “places of public accommodation” provide “equal access” to their goods, services, and facilities to disabled individuals. When the anti-disability bias law was enacted in 1990, places of public accommodation typically were physical locations, such as stores. With the growth of e-commerce and related ADA litigation, courts have found that websites can be “places of public accommodation” for purposes of the law ...