Robles v. Dominos Pizza LLC

The panel reversed the district court’s dismissal of an action under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, alleging that Domino’s Pizza’s website and mobile application were not fully accessible to a blind or visually impaired person.

The panel held that the ADA applied to Domino’s website and app because the Act mandates that places of public accommodation, like Domino’s, provide auxiliary aids and services to make visual materials available to individuals who are blind. Even though customers primarily accessed the website and app away from Domino’s physical restaurants, the panel stated that the ADA applies to the services of a public accommodation, not services in a place of public accommodation. The panel stated that the website and app connected customers to the goods and services of Domino’s physical restaurants.

The panel held that imposing liability on Domino’s under the ADA would not violate the company’s Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. The panel held that the statute was not impermissibly vague, and Domino’s had received fair notice that its website and app must comply with the ADA. Further, the plaintiff did not seek to impose liability on Domino’s for failure to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0, private industry standards for website accessibility. Rather, an order requiring compliance with WCAG 2.0 was a possible equitable remedy. Finally, the lack of specific regulations, not yet promulgated by the Department of Justice, did not eliminate Domino’s statutory duty.

The panel held that the district court erred in invoking the prudential doctrine of primary jurisdiction, which allows courts to stay proceedings or to dismiss a complaint without prejudice pending the resolution of an issue within the special competence of an administrative agency. The panel reasoned that the DOJ was aware of the issue, and its withdrawal of an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking meant that undue delay was inevitable. The delay was needless because the application of the ADA to the facts of this case was well within the district court’s competence. The panel remanded the case to the district court.

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