I do not like where this lawsuit is heading:

Target Corp., the second-largest U.S. discount store chain, lost a bid Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the company’s website wasn’t accessible to the blind.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in San Francisco rejected Target’s request to dismiss the case. She also certified the case as a class action, ruling that all legally blind people in the U.S. who have been denied access to services at Target stores because of deficiencies in the company’s website can join the suit.

Target has failed to use “technologically simple and not economically prohibitive” code embedded in websites allowing the blind to use software that vocalizes the content, according to court filings by the National Federation of the Blind.

The group filed the suit on behalf of Bruce Sexton, a UC Berkeley student who claimed that he couldn’t access some features of Target.com. “It was just gibberish for blind users trying to use the website,” said Larry Paradis, a lawyer for the group.

“Target has argued that no law — neither the Americans with Disabilities Act nor state law — could require it to make its website accessible to the blind,” Paradis said. “Today’s decision completely rejects Target’s argument.”

Not only is the judge allowing the lawsuit to continue, she also certified it as being a class action lawsuit, allowing hundereds of thousands of blind people to join. The question that needs to be asked in this scenario, is exactly how much power does the government have to regulate private industry. If Target does not have the proper code embedded in their website which would allow another companies software to work, so be it. They are accepting the fact that they will lose the business of the visually impaired who will not be able to shop online at their website.

If the judge rules against Target in this case, the next question which would need to be asked is, whose responsibility should it be to make Target’s website compatible with a third party software? These software programs which are quite expensive, with the most popular one selling for $895. Should it not be the responsibility of the company making the software to ensure it is compatible with all websites?

As Michelle Malkin points out, a similar lawsuit against Southwest failed a few years ago:

U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet.

“To expand the ADA to cover ‘virtual’ spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards,” Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. “The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites.”

Unfortunately U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel is know to be relatively liberal, will most likely not see it the same way.

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Constitution, Politics