2007 Issue 1 - New York City Bar Association

W E B S I T E A C C E S S I B I L I T Y F O R P E O P L E W I T H D I S A B I L I T I E S
works under which a public accommodation’s Website is subject to Title
III: (a) as a place of “public accommodation” in its own right, and/or (b)
as one of the “goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations
of” a public accommodation.
A. A Website Is a Place of “Public Accommodation”
The statute does not define, nor set forth examples of, the term “place.”
In trying to discern a meaning for “place,” some courts and commentators
have made the twelve categories of “public accommodations” serve as
limiting factors that define the sort of “place” to which Title III applies.
The result is an assertion that a “place” is a physical “facility” and that
the terms “place” and “facility” should be read to require a location people
can enter bodily to offer or to seek goods and/or services. No such limitation
appears in the ADA. 17
(E) a bakery, grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, shopping center, or other
sales or rental establishment;
(F) a laundromat, dry-cleaner, bank, barber shop, beauty shop, travel service, shoe
repair service, funeral parlor, gas station, office of an accountant or lawyer, pharmacy,
insurance office, professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or
other service establishment;
(G) a terminal, depot, or other station used for specified public transportation;
(H) a museum, library, gallery, or other place of public display or collection;
(I) a park, zoo, amusement park, or other place of recreation;
(J) a nursery, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private school,
or other place of education;
(K) a day care center, senior citizen center, homeless shelter, food bank, adoption
agency, or other social service center establishment; and
(L) a gymnasium, health spa, bowling alley, golf course, or other place of exercise or
recreation.
17. The statute uses three different terms to describe the categories of covered “public accommodations”:
“places” of lodging, exhibition or entertainment, of public gathering, of public
display or collection, of recreation, of education and of exercise, 42 U.S.C.A. §§
12181(7)(A),(C),(D),(H),(I),(J),(L); “establishments” serving food or drink, offering sales or
rentals, offering services (such as travel service, shoe repair service, insurance, health care)
and offering social services (such as day care or adoption), id. §§ 12181(7)(B),(E),(F),(K); and
“station[s] used for specified public transportation.” Id. § 12181(7)(G). “The term ‘specified
public transportation’ means transportation by bus, rail, or any other conveyance (other than
by aircraft) that provides the general public with general or special service (including charter
service) on a regular and continuing basis.” Id.§ 12181(10). Any assertion that Congress
intended to limit applicability of Title III to a certain size or type of “place” is even more
absurd than would be a claim Congress excluded from coverage five of the twelve categories
of “public accommodations” it described by using a term other than “place.”
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