Demand letters

What a demand letter asks for.

A demand letter asserts a claim and asks for a response by a stated date. It comes before any court filing, and usually without warning.

Most letters name barriers on the website and ask for three things: changes to the site to meet a published standard, payment of the claimant's legal fees and costs, and a settlement negotiated quickly. A letter that is settled usually costs $20,000 or more.

Underneath, the question is what you can show: what you found, what you put first, and what has been resolved since.

ROBLES V. DOMINO’S PIZZA

Unlike the insurance policy in Weyer, Domino’s website and app facilitate access to the goods and services of a place of public accommodation—Domino’s physical restaurants. They are two of the primary (and heavily advertised) means of ordering Domino’s products to be picked up at or delivered from Domino’s restaurants. We agree with the district court in this case—and the many other district courts that have confronted this issue in similar contexts⁷—that the ADA applies to Domino’s website and app, which connect customers to the goods and services of Domino’s physical restaurants.

The Ninth Circuit's opinion in Robles v. Domino's Pizza, January 15, 2019. Public record.

U.S. District Court, Central District of California · June 2022

Nearly six years

A customer who is blind could not order a pizza on the company's website or app, and sued in September 2016. The company fought the claim. The Ninth Circuit held that the ADA applies to a website and app "which connect customers to the goods and services of Domino's physical restaurants," and the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal. In 2021 the trial court ordered the website brought into line with WCAG 2.0. The case settled in June 2022.

Six years of defending a website, and the website still had to be fixed.

Robles v. Domino's Pizza, LLC · No. 2:16-cv-06599 (C.D. Cal.); No. 17-55504 (9th Cir.)

If a letter has already arrived, the first call is to counsel. This is a legal matter, and lawyers handle it. Whether to begin a record while a matter is open is a decision for your counsel. An engagement with Esther can run through your counsel.

The answer has to exist before the question.

What you can show is a dated record. A record covers the time after it begins. The past cannot be recorded after the fact.

What a record can show on the day a letter arrives
When the record started	What it can show that day
Months before the letter	Those months: what was found, what mattered most, and what was resolved
The day the letter arrived	Every day after that one, and none before it
Today, with no letter yet	Every day from today on

An organization can be contacted more than once, by more than one party. The record that answers the first letter answers the next one too.

U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit · June 2018

"Nothing in the record"

A restaurant chain settled one website lawsuit by agreeing to improve its site within twelve months. A second, nearly identical suit followed. The chain argued that the work was already underway. The court found "nothing in the record demonstrating that Hooters has successfully done so," and let the second suit go forward.

A promise to fix was not proof that the fix was done.

Haynes v. Hooters of America, LLC · No. 17-13170 (11th Cir.)

The Eleventh Circuit's opinion in Haynes v. Hooters of America, page 6. Public record.

From today, everything carries a date.

A record started today covers every day that follows.

Esther finds the digital barriers people run into, puts first the ones that stop someone paying, applying, or booking, and dates every finding. As issues are resolved, the list gets shorter, and the record shows when. Esther's assessments have supported ADA cases in federal court.

A composite example, not a client's data.

Today is the earliest date your record can carry.

Thirty minutes. Your situation, and where to begin.

A thirty-minute introduction For private organizations