According to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in the Southern District of New York, a Bronx, New York, resident asserts that video game company Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) does not maintain its website in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as a result, the website is purportedly inaccessible to the plaintiff.
The complaint says that when the plaintiff, described as “a visually-impaired and legally blind person,” accessed its website this month, the site had multiple screen-reading issues that prevented him from accessing all content available to sighted users.
EA is a Redwood City, California-headquartered company that creates and sells video games for consoles, PCs, and mobile devices. According to its website, it has more than 580 million active players and fans around the globe and a critically acclaimed, high-quality portfolio of brands such as EA SPORTS FIFA, Battlefield, and Apex Legends.
The filing explains that blind or visually-impaired users use screen-reading software programs to fully access websites and the information, products, goods and services they offer. In order for the software to work, websites must be designed to be screen-read, and EA’s is not, the complaint states.
Specifically, the lawsuit claims that when the plaintiff visited the website, the screen reader could not successfully navigate it, failed to read item description links when selected and failed to read items’ prices. According to the plaintiff, these shortcomings violate Title III of the ADA as well as the New York City Human Rights Law.
The plaintiff seeks to certify a class of visually-impaired and/or legally blind individuals who attempted to access EA’s website and were denied equal access thereto during the last three years. The three-count complaint seeks injunctive relief ordering EA to rectify the issues, statutory and other damages, as well as an award of the plaintiff counsel’s fees and expenses.
The plaintiff is represented by Mizrahi Kroub LLP.
