Two separate cases by judges in the Southern District of New York have held that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to websites since it only covers “places” of public accommodation and websites have no “place. Mejia v. High Brew Coffee Inc., 2024 WL 4350912 (S.D.N.Y. 2024); Sookol v. Fresh Clean Threads, 2024 WL 4499206 (S.D.N.Y. 2024). The Eleventh Circuit agrees. Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., 993 F.3d 1266 (11th Cir. 2021), as do the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits. Ford v. Schering-Plough Corp., 145 F.3d 601, 614 (3d Cir. 1998); Parker v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 121 F.3d 1006, 1010-11 (6th Cir. 1997); Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, 913 F.3d 898, 905 (9th Cir. 2019); Gil v. Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc., 993 F.3d 1266, 1276-77 (11th Cir.), opinion vacated for mootness, 21 F.4th 775 (11th Cir. 2021).
The First Circuit, however, held that the phrase “public accommodation” “is not limited to actual physical structures.” Carparts Distrib. Ctr., Inc. v. Auto. Wholesaler’s Ass’n of New England, Inc., 37 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir. 1994). And in Doe v. Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 179 F.3d 557, 559 (7th Cir. 1999), the Seventh Circuit cited Carparts approvingly, writing that “[t]he core meaning of [the public accommodation] provision, plainly enough, is that the owner or operator of a store, hotel, restaurant, dentist’s office, travel agency, theater, Web site, or other facility (whether in physical space or in electronic space) … that is open to the public cannot exclude disabled persons.)”