Shopify ADA Lawsuits in 2026: What 54 Sued Stores Have in Common

Shopify stores named in 2026 ADA website lawsuits tend to fail the same few checks. We ran automated scans on 54 Shopify stores named in federal website accessibility cases filed from May to September 2026, up to ten public pages each. The stores had a median of 220 automated accessibility issues, and 49 of 54 had at least one critical issue. The most common problems were low text contrast (46 stores), headings that skip levels (44), tap targets too small for a finger (40), links with no name (31), videos without captions (30) and images with no text alternative (28). About half of all issues (53.8%) were the kind a tool can fix in theme code once someone approves the change.

Key findings

• 220 issues per store. The median across 54 stores, up to ten pages each. The middle half of stores had between 147 and 358; the range ran from 25 to 1,020.
• 49 of 54 had a critical issue. Critical is the highest impact level we report, following axe-core; the median store had 14.
• Low contrast was the most common barrier: 46 of 54 stores, 4,186 instances.
• A good score did not mean a clean store. The median automated accessibility score was 85.2 out of 100, across the 53 stores with a score.
• Time since the lawsuit made little visible difference. Stores sued 60 days or more before our scan still had a median of 214 issues, and 13 of 17 still had a critical one.
• 53.8% of issues were fixable in code after review. Captions and third party widgets were not.
• 49 of 54 stores ran third party app content that an automated scan cannot vouch for.

How many Shopify stores are being sued in 2026

Shopify is the platform most often named in ADA website lawsuits. EcomBack counted 1,037 ADA website lawsuits in the first quarter of 2026, and 459 of them (44.26%) named a Shopify store, up from 33.06% a year earlier. Illinois led with 256 cases, followed by California (194), Florida (186) and New York (160). Seyfarth Shaw, which counts federal cases only, recorded 3,117 federal website accessibility lawsuits in 2025, 27% more than the 2,452 in 2024, led by New York (1,021), Florida (961) and Illinois (585).

The cases in our sample come from the same few federal courts: S.D. New York (35), N.D. Illinois (12), S.D. Florida (5), N.D. Indiana (1), W.D. Pennsylvania (1). By month of filing: May 3, June 7, July 10, August 15, September 19.

The barriers sued Shopify stores share

These are the checks that failed on the most stores. "Stores" counts stores with at least one instance; "instances" counts every failing element across all stores; the last column is the share of instances an app can fix in theme code after approval.

Low contrast is text whose color is too close to its background, below the 4.5 to 1 ratio WCAG sets for body text. On Shopify it usually comes from theme color settings: pale gray text, white text on light images, sale badges. A smaller share of contrast instances (42%) is fixable in code than for most barriers here, because text inside app widgets, or with colors set inline, cannot be changed safely from the theme.

Tap targets under 24 by 24 CSS pixels fail WCAG 2.2 criterion 2.5.8. Color swatches, pagination arrows, close buttons and social icons are the usual culprits, and they tend to repeat on every product page.

Links and buttons with no name are icons a screen reader announces as "link" or "button" and nothing else: the cart, search, account and social icons, slider arrows. One unnamed icon in a header snippet appears on every page, which is why these counts run past a thousand.

Images with no text alternative leave a screen reader user with a file name or nothing. Product photos can be fixed in Shopify admin: open the product, click the image and add alt text.

Videos without captions fail WCAG 1.2.2 when they carry speech or other meaningful sound, and no code change can write the captions: someone has to write or check them.

Headings that skip levels (for example from an H1 straight to an H4) are an axe best practice rather than a WCAG failure, but they make a page harder to scan with a screen reader, and 44 of 54 stores had them.

A good score is not a clean store

The median automated accessibility score in our sample was 85.2 out of 100 (53 stores; one scan measured too few pages to be scored, and we report no score rather than a partial one). The score is the share of tested WCAG criteria a store passes. The issue count counts every failing element. A store can pass most checks and still fail a few of them hundreds of times, because a single theme snippet (a header, a product card, a footer) renders on every page. That is why a store with a score in the high 80s can still show several hundred barriers, and why a score on its own says little about what a shopper using a screen reader meets.

Time since the lawsuit made little visible difference

We grouped stores by how long before our scan their case was filed.

These are different stores measured once, not the same stores measured over time, and a case can settle with a remediation deadline months away. Still, in this sample, stores sued two to four months earlier did not look markedly cleaner than stores sued last week.

What the sued stores sell

Apparel was the largest group in our sample. In EcomBack's first quarter 2026 count it was the second largest industry (25.17% of filings), behind restaurants, food and drinks (32.21%), a category that includes many businesses that are not online stores.

What to fix first if your store looks like this

Start where the sued stores failed most often and where one change fixes every page:

1. Name every icon link and button in your header, footer, product cards and sliders (WCAG 2.4.4 and 4.1.2).
2. Add alt text to product and collection images in Shopify admin, starting with your best sellers (WCAG 1.1.1).
3. Raise text contrast to at least 4.5 to 1 in your theme's color settings; check colors with a contrast checker (WCAG 1.4.3).
4. Make tap targets at least 24 by 24 pixels: swatches, arrows, close buttons (WCAG 2.5.8).
5. Caption product and brand videos (WCAG 1.2.2).
6. Keep keyboard focus visible past sticky headers, chat buttons and pop-ups (WCAG 2.4.11).
7. Buy something with only a keyboard, then with a screen reader, through cart and checkout, including every app on the way. No automated scan covers that journey.

AccessComply scans your store, fixes the supported issues in your theme code after you approve each change, keeps the original so any change can be undone, and rechecks the page afterwards. You can run a free scan to see your own numbers.

If your store has already been sued

Keep the demand letter or complaint and your records, and speak to qualified counsel before you respond. An automated report can document what you found and fixed, with dates, but it is not proof of conformance or a legal defense. Our demand letter evidence checklist lists what to gather.

How we did this

• Cases. We searched public federal dockets through CourtListener's RECAP archive for cases filed from May to September 2026 whose docket text names the Americans with Disabilities Act and a website. We kept cases against a single named company whose complaint names its own online store, and whose store runs on Shopify, detected from the storefront's code. We dropped cases that could concern a physical location. The sample is the set we could identify, verify and scan, not a random sample.
• Scans. Each store was scanned between 21 and 24 September 2026 with AccessComply's public scanner: up to ten public pages (the home page plus collection, product and content pages found by crawling), tested with axe-core 4.12.1 and our own checks for captions, focus visibility and third party content, with some pages rechecked at a 375 pixel phone width. 53 of 54 scans reached all ten pages. We did not log in or test carts, checkout or account pages.
• Counting. An issue is one element failing one check on one page; one element can fail several checks. Critical is axe-core's highest impact level. "Fixable in code" means the check has a supported automated fix and the element sits where a theme change can be scoped safely; it is not a promise that a fix will apply to a given theme.
• Limits. Automated checks cover only part of WCAG. Each scan is a snapshot taken weeks or months after the case was filed, and stores change their sites. We saw the site each complaint names, not the complaint's full allegations.
• Data. Download the per store data (anonymous IDs) and the barrier counts, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page. To cite it: AccessComply, "Shopify ADA Lawsuits in 2026: What 54 Sued Stores Have in Common", September 2026.

Sources

• EcomBack, Q1 2026 ADA Lawsuit Report.
• Seyfarth Shaw, ADA Title III blog, Federal Court Website Accessibility Lawsuit Filings Bounce Back in 2025 (25 March 2026).
• Free Law Project, CourtListener RECAP archive (federal dockets).
• W3C, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.