Fischler v. 140 West Street (Ny) LLC

Summary

On October 31, 2019, Brian Fischler filed a Complaint in New York Federal court against 140 West Street (NY) LLC. Plaintiff Brian Fischler alleges that www.100barclay.com is not accessible per the WCAG 2.0 accessibility standard(s).

About the defendant

140 West Street (NY) LLC is a real estate company that owns 100 Barclay Tribeca, a building of condominiums in New York City.

What the complaint says

The problems the plaintiff describes with the website.

• Non-text images are labeled only with a file name and no accompanying alt-text
• The floor plan of the apartment is an image with no accompanying alt-text. The PDF of the floor plan he found to be equally inaccessible
• The screen reader has significant difficulty navigating this Website
• Multiple pages share the same name, which can be confusing to a person using a screen reader
• Lack of alt-text for images
• Documents titles are blank
• Links use general text like “download” with no surrounding text explaining the link purpose
• Frames do not have a title
• PDFs are not tagged and therefore are inaccessible to screen readers
• Webpages have no headings, headings are not nested correctly, and approximately nine (9) headings are empty
• Several links on a page share the same link text but go to different destinations
• Webpages have markup errors

Legal claims

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

• Violations of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq.
• Violations of the NYSHRL
• Violations of the NYCHRL
• Declaratory Relief

What the plaintiff asks for

What the plaintiff wants the court to order.

• A preliminary and permanent injunction to prohibit Defendant from violating Title III of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12182, et seq., N.Y. Exec. Law § 296, et seq., N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107, et seq., and the laws of New York
• A preliminary and permanent injunction requiring Defendant to take all the steps necessary to take its Website into full compliance with the requirements set forth in Title III of the ADA, and its implementing regulations, so that the Website is readily accessible to and usable by blind individuals
• A declaration that Defendant owns, maintains and/or operates the Website in a manner that discriminates against the blind and which fails to provide access for persons with disabilities as required by ADA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12182, et seq., N.Y. Exec. Law § 296, et seq., N.Y.C. Admin. Code § 8-107, et seq., and the laws of New York
• An order certifying the Class and Subclasses under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a) & (b)(2) and/or (b)(3), appointing Plaintiff as Class Representative, and his attorneys as Class Counsel
• Compensatory damages in an amount to be determined by proof, including all applicable statutory damages, punitive damages and fines
• Pre- and post-judgment interest;
• An award of costs and expenses of this action together with reasonable attorneys’ and expert fees
• Such other and further relief as this Court deems just and proper