Bill to shield Missouri businesses from ADA website lawsuits heads to governor

A growing number of businesses are being sued for minor violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act on their websites. These violations may include incompatibility with screen-reader software, insufficient color contrast or missing captions or transcripts for video and audio content. This makes it difficult for people with disabilities to navigate the websites.

More than 100 businesses in Missouri have been the target of such lawsuits, according to a 2025 ADA Website Accessibility Lawsuits Report. Legislators have criticized the suits as cash grabs rather than good faith efforts to improve accessibility.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, a Republican from Tarkio, is sponsoring a similar bill, the Protecting Small Businesses from Predatory Website Lawsuits Act, in Washington. He highlighted the national scope of the problem in a letter to his constituents, which said that the number of website-related suits nationwide has surged from 200 in 2016 to more than 4,000 in 2025. Graves said that more than half of the 4,000 cases were filed by just 33 people.

This newly passed Missouri legislation will give businesses 90 days to fix their websites after receiving a noncompliance warning, after which a lawsuit can be filed.

Introduced by state Sen. Brad Hudson, a Republican from Cape Fair, Senate Bill 907 received unanimous initial approval before passing over to the House, where it underwent two amendments.

The House General Laws Committee extended the new protections to all entities registered with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office, which includes churches and nonprofit organizations, in addition to businesses.

During floor debate, the House also adopted an amendment to protect web content in addition to websites. This covers small business owners who use large platforms such as Etsy. These platforms allow sellers to set up their own individual storefronts but do not give them control over website settings to comply with ADA standards.

The amended legislation was unanimously approved by the House on April 16 and sent back to the Senate for final approval, where it was also unanimously approved.

Hudson called the bill an “all hands on deck effort,” shouting out various senators and representatives who worked on the bill and helped to move it through both chambers.

“Because of the way this issue has affected business owners throughout the state, there’s a lot of legislators weighing in on this,” Hudson said. “It’s been an all-session effort to get this bill in the right place to provide protections for citizens and businesses across our state. I’m glad that we are now one step away from getting this across the finish line.”