Chalas v. Barlean's Organic Oils, L.L.C.

Background

Ana Chalas, who is legally blind, alleged that she uses screen-reading software to access websites. She claimed that she visited Barlean’s website on May 18, July 29, and August 3, 2022, to try to purchase a product called “Stomach Repair — Vanilla Chai” for her cousin. According to the First Amended Complaint, the website’s accessibility barriers prevented her screen reader from working properly, including by failing to provide information about whether an item had been added to the shopping cart and by preventing her from paying for items in the cart.

Chalas alleged that the website continued to deny blind and visually impaired people full and equal access. She also alleged that she intended to return to the website to complete the purchase if the barriers were fixed. The First Amended Complaint asserted a Title III claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a disability-discrimination and failure-to-accommodate claim under the New York City Human Rights Law, and a third count seeking declaratory relief. She requested injunctive and declaratory relief, damages, civil penalties and fines, punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees and costs.

Barlean’s Motion

Barlean’s moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. It argued that Chalas lacked constitutional standing, that its website was not a “place of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA or the city law, and that Chalas could not recover civil penalties, fines, or punitive damages under the city law.

Court’s Analysis

Standing. The court held that Chalas adequately alleged standing. Standing requires an injury that is concrete and particularized, a connection between that injury and the defendant’s conduct, and a likelihood that a favorable decision would address the injury. In the ADA context, the court also considered whether Chalas alleged past discrimination, that the discrimination would continue, and facts supporting an intent to return.

The court found that Chalas’s allegations that she visited the website three times, could not complete her intended purchase, and encountered specific screen-reader barriers were enough to allege a past injury. Her allegations that the barriers remained, together with her stated desire to purchase the particular product from Barlean’s website, were also enough at this stage to support an inference that she intended to return. The court therefore denied the Rule 12(b)(1) portion of the motion.

Whether the website was covered by the ADA. The court explained that the Second Circuit had not decided whether a website must be connected to a physical location to qualify as a “place of public accommodation” under Title III. It noted a split among federal appellate courts: some require a connection between the website and a physical location, while others apply Title III to covered businesses’ websites even without such a physical connection.

The court said that, based on Second Circuit precedent and decisions from other courts in the Southern District of New York, its “best guess” was that the Second Circuit would conclude that a website can be a place of public accommodation. Applying that view, the court held that Chalas had adequately pleaded an ADA disability-discrimination claim. Because the New York City Human Rights Law is construed more broadly than comparable federal law, the court also held that the complaint adequately stated the city-law claim.

Requested damages and declaratory relief. The court declined to dismiss Chalas’s requests for civil penalties, fines, or punitive damages at this stage. It explained that a motion to dismiss generally addresses a claim, not merely a form of requested relief, making Barlean’s challenge to those damages procedurally premature.

The court dismissed Count III, which sought a declaration that Barlean’s website violated the ADA and the New York City Human Rights Law, because that count duplicated the request for declaratory relief in the complaint’s prayer for relief.

Disposition

The court denied the motion to dismiss Counts I and II and dismissed Count III. The court’s conclusion also states that the motion to dismiss “Count JI” was granted and otherwise denied; the opinion’s substantive discussion identifies the dismissed count as Count III, apparently reflecting an optical-character-recognition or typographical error in the text provided.