New York District Court Holds that ADA Excludes Websites Without a Physical Location

On August 16, 2021, the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York held that a website without a public-facing, physical retail operation is a not a "place of public accommodation" as contemplated by Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (Winegard v. Newsday LLC (EDNY Aug. 16, 2021)). This decision is the first of its kind by a New York federal court.

Recognizing that it was not bound by other district court cases that applied the ADA where there was a nexus between a place of public accommodation and its website, the court concluded that, according to the ADA's plain language, the ADA excluded websites of businesses with no public-facing, physical retail operations from the definition of public accommodation. The court further concluded that Congress' omission of terms such as "all businesses operating in interstate commerce" or all "retail" or "service" operations in the ADA's anti-discrimination provision indicated an intention to apply this provision to physical places rather than business operations generally.

The court concluded that the ADA excludes, by its plain language, the websites of businesses with no public-facing, physical retail operations from the definition of public accommodation. Accordingly, the court in Winegard granted the defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state a valid ADA claim (the court denied defendant's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction).

The Winegard court's decision indicates that websites without a brick and mortar location within the jurisdiction of the Eastern District of New York do not need to be ADA compliant.