Domino’s takes its case for non-accessible design to the Supreme Court

Enlarge / Visually impaired consumers use screen readers, special input devices, and other technologies to access the internet-at least, on sites designed to accommodate it. (credit: zlikovec | Getty Images)

The shift toward using an app on your phone to place an order, instead of using your phone to call a place, has made life easier for millions of people. Unfortunately, that shift has the opposite effect on blind and visually impaired consumers, for whom thousands of websites and mobile apps are unusable. Domino's Pizza maintains one such site, and it's asking the Supreme Court to let the site stay that way.

Domino's made a legal filing called a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court last week-basically, an argument for why the nation's highest court should take its case. In the petition (PDF), Domino's asks the court to determine whether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires a retailer's website or app to "satisfy discrete accessibility requirements with respect to individuals with disabilities."

"Websites and mobile apps do not become public accommodations simply by virtue of providing access to the goods and services of a brick-and-mortar enterprise," the pizza chain argues. The ADA "does not demand full accessibility for each and every means of accessing the goods or services a public accommodation provides to the public."

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