Strengthening the Right to Accessible Web Sites for Consumers with Disabilities Through the Development of a Clear Test for the Nexus Rule Under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act

Currently, most of the U.S. Federal disability rights laws expressly require accessible websites for people with disabilities, either in the statute or the regulation. There is one major exception: for websites of public accommodations under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the scope of accessibility coverage is determined by a combination of case law and agency interpretations, rather than expressly in the statute or regulations. To make it more complex, there is a three-way circuit split as to whether websites of public accommodations covered under Title III are required to have accessible websites. The predominant view in the circuit split is that a website is required to be accessible under Title III if there is a "nexus" between the website and the physical location.

However, there is no clearly defined test to determine if a nexus is present. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of the current legal framework for web accessibility requirements for public accommodations, to describe the history and development of the nexus rule, and to propose a clear test for the nexus rule.