Filed: August 9, 2023

Court: Supreme Court of the United States

Overview: Amicus brief filed in case before the Supreme Court that will decide whether testers – disabled people who investigate compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – have the ability to sue businesses for discrimination when their rights under that law are violated.

Excerpt: “Under the Reservation Rule, information about hotel accessibility features must be posted on hotel websites. 28 C.F.R. § 36.302(e)(1). Unfortunately, despite the 1990 enactment of the ADA and 2010 promulgation of the Reservation Rule, people with disabilities regularly encounter inaccurate or incomplete information, or no information at all, when they attempt to ascertain a hotel’s accessibility features online. The message these individuals receive during these encounters is that their patronage is less valuable and desirable than the patronage of nondisabled guests because the public accommodation did not consider disabled people among its potential customers…By making the apparently advantageous business decision to share information about its hotels with a much larger audience over the Internet, while simultaneously failing to provide the accessibility information that disabled members of that audience need in order to be treated equally…Acheson is discriminating against every disabled person who encounters that noncompliant online reservations service. Each of these individuals— interacting with this noncompliant reservations service — could suffer their own concrete and particularized injury: the dignitary harm of disregard and erasure that Title III was enacted to prevent.”

Case Documents

Disability Antidiscrimination Law Scholars Amicus Brief

Disability Rights Groups Amicus Brief

Press Release

Amicus Brief Filed in U.S. Supreme Court Case Emphasizes Importance of Testers to ADA Enforcement

Related Media

Disability Scoop: Disability Advocates Urge Supreme Court Not to Limit ADA Protections

USA Today: ‘Sleeping in my car.’ This Supreme Court Case Could Change How Disabled Americans Book Hotel Rooms

Slate: The Americans With Disabilities Act Is Under Threat at the Supreme Court