Websites and Coke Machines – Texas Judge says neither is covered by the ADA

Like Coke machines, websites are not places of public accommodation subject to the ADA according to Judge Sim Lake’s January 24, 2019 decision in Zaid v. Smart Fin. Credit Union, 2019 WL 314732 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 24, 2019). It is a holding of first impression in the Fifth Circuit and it can be hoped it will influence the flood of cases sure to follow.*  The Court’s reasoning was straightforward: The list of public accommodations in the ADA itself refers exclusively to physical places and the Fifth Circuit’s holding in Magee v. Coca-Cola Refreshments USA, Incorporated, 833 F.3d 530 (5th Cir. 2016) confirms that only physical places can be places of public accommodation.** Missing from the decision, and presumably from the briefing, is any mention of the theories under which a website, as a service of a public accommodation rather than a public accommodation itself, must be accessible. A host of cases in the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits hold that…

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