Another class action lawsuit has been filed by a small business that purchased an overlay monthly subscription, yet still got hit with a lawsuit claiming its website was not accessible. This suit against UserWay by a small online florist, described below, is similar in scope to the class action lawsuit filed against AccessiBe, another overlay vendor, by a small skin care dermatology practice.
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So many reasons not to use a one-line-of-code overlay
I chose an image of a pile of warning signs to illustrate this short article because evidence continues to mount that one-line-of-code overlays do not make a website accessible to disabled people. They do not protect companies that license them from lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act. These cases against UserWay and AccessiBe alone should serve as warnings to prospective buyers of the limitations of these products.
But the warnings don’t stop there.
- The disability and accessibility communities have warned about the harms and ineffectiveness of overlays for many years. If you are not familiar with the Overlay Fact Sheet, please spend some time with this detailed resource. (I have signed the Overlay Fact Sheet Statement and written or been quoted in some resources in the Fact Sheet.)
- The UseableNet ADA Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker reported that there were 1,023 lawsuits filed in 2024 against companies using an overlay. In January 2025 alone UsableNet found 85 defendants were sued while using a 3rd party accessibility related control, including overlays and widgets.
- In 2024 the United States Federal Trade Commission fined AccessiBe one million dollars and issued a consent order to prevent future false misrepresentations by the company.
The warnings are clear: if you want your online presence to work for everyone, and if you want to protect against web accessibility lawsuits, a one-line-of-code solution will not meet your needs.
The lawsuit against UserWay
Bloomsybox is an online flower delivery service that delivers flower bouquets to
cities throughout the United States and in five other countries. It operates only online through its website Bloomsybox.com.
In July of 2023 it bought a monthly subscription to User Way’s overlay product (also called a widget). Then, in December of that year, Bloomsybox was sued by a disabled person who could not use the flower delivery website despite the UserWay overlay.
The class action lawsuit, filed in the United States federal district court in Delaware, explains how Bloomsybox read and relied on promises and statements in UserWay’s advertising before licensing the product in 2023. Promises and statements that were not true.
Here is the 31 page Userway class action complaint. The case was filed last summer.
Here are other articles on this class action lawsuit against UserWay:
- Adrian Roselli’s January 14, 2025 update to his long running article #UserWay Will Get You Sued
- December 2024 article on the Tech StartUps website titled Userway faces class action lawsuit over alleged false accessibility and ADA compliance claims