Gomez v. Southern Grove Community Development District II

Summary

On May 13, 2019, Andres Gomez filed a Complaint in Florida Federal court against Southern Grove Community Development District II. Plaintiff Andres Gomez alleges that www.southerngrovecdd2.com is not accessible per the WCAG 2.0 accessibility standard(s).

About the defendant

Southern Grove Community Development District II is an independent special districts which is part of a master-planned, mixed-use community in the state of Florida.

What the complaint says

The problems the plaintiff describes with the website.

• Text equivalent for every non-text element is not provided
• Information about the meaning and structure of the Website’s content is not conveyed by more than the visual presentation of content
• When the sequence in which content is presented affects its meaning, a correct reading sequence cannot be programmatically determined
• Web pages and linked documents do not have titles that describe topic or purpose
• Images including, but not limited to, photos and electronic documents (PDFs and/or RTFs) containing public records on the website are not explained to the user with use of a screen reader program.

Legal claims

The laws the plaintiff says the defendant broke, called causes of action.

• Title III of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq.
• Violation of Section 504 of Rehabilitation Act

What the plaintiff asks for

What the plaintiff wants the court to order.

• A Declaratory Judgment that at the commencement of this action Defendant was in violation of the specific requirements of Title III of the ADA and Section 504 of the Federal Rehabilitation Act as described above, and the relevant implementing regulations of the ADA, in that Defendant took no action that was reasonably calculated to ensure that its Websites are fully accessible to, and independently usable by, blind individuals
• A permanent injunction pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 12188(a)(2) and 28 CFR § 36.504 (a) which directs Defendant to take all steps necessary to bring the Website into full compliance with the requirements set forth in the ADA, and implementing regulations, so that the Website is fully accessible to, and independently usable by, blind individuals, and which further directs that the Court shall retain jurisdiction for a period to be determined to ensure that Defendant has adopted and is following an institutional policy that will in fact cause Defendant to remain fully in compliance with the law—the specific injunctive relief requested by Plaintiff is described more fully in Paragraph 6 above;
• Payment of costs of suit
• Payment of reasonable attorneys’ fees, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 12205 and 28 CFR § 36.505
• The provision of whatever other relief the Court deems just, equitable and appropriate