Capillus Class Action Says Website Violates ADA

A blind customer has launched a class action lawsuit against Curallux LLC, saying that the company’s Capillus website is inaccessible to blind users.

New York resident Pamela Williams’ class action lawsuit aims to take Capillus to task for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA.

Williams says the Capillus website possesses a slew of problems that make it inaccessible to visually impaired users, including too many broken links and a lack of alt text. Because of the site’s inaccessibility, Williams was allegedly unable to purchase a hair regrowth cap product from Capillus.

In her Capillus class action lawsuit, Williams argues that the site’s many issues make it unable to be read by screen readers. She says that screen readers are the only way that visually impaired and blind people can access the internet.

Williams stresses that they are an essential tool in our increasingly digital world, helping the visually impaired conduct business, connect with friends, and go shopping online.

According to the Capillus class action lawsuit, these devices access websites through the use of “alt text” or invisible code that is embedded beneath a graphic image. Williams explains that screen readers read alt text along with other text, allowing visually impaired users to have access to visual as well as textual content of a website.

However, this was not possible on the Capillus website, states the Capilllus blind accessibility class action lawsuit. Allegedly, the Capillus website does not have alt text and therefore cannot be read by screen readers or navigated by blind users. 

Williams recounts how she visited the Capillus website multiple times, most recently in May 2020. She says that she wanted to make a purchase from the site, but was unable to because she could not navigate the site.

The plaintiff states that the site featured many images of products, and sighted users can browse these images to make a purchasing decision. However, Williams was unable to browse items and compare items because the graphic content was not made accessible to her, she says.

The Capillus website accessibility class action lawsuit elaborates on the website’s purported problems, saying its inaccessibility does not stop there. Allegedly, in many instances in the site, there are many fields that are not labeled or titled. This reportedly prevents the screen reader from communicating the purpose of an element of the webpage.

Williams says that in her case, she was unable to make an online purchase because she was not able to determine what to enter in various fields of the site. This allegedly meant that she could not search for items in the search bar or fill out her payment information if she wished to make a purchase.

Speaking in more depth to the navigation problems with the site, the Capillus ADA class action lawsuit notes that the website’s broken links also make it hard to navigate.

She says that “for the visually impaired [broken links are] especially paralyzing due to the inability to navigate or otherwise determine where one is on the website once a broken link is encountered.”

This means that if a link is broken and a user is taken to an error/non-existent page, it is almost impossible to navigate back to one’s original search, says Williams.

Similarly challenging was that multiple pages on the website possess the same title elements, explains Williams.

She says that this makes it impossible to navigate the site, because the screen reader cannot distinguish between pages with the same names.

The Capillus class action lawsuit states that these issues with the site violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, because it prohibits visually impaired and blind users from having “full and equal access” to the services offered by Capillus. 

Williams seeks damages to compensate her and other individuals for the alleged violations of the law. The class action lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction requiring the company to make the Capillus accessible to blind users, develop a policy around accessibility, and conduct routine checks to ensure that the site continues to be accessible.

Curallux was previously hit with other class action claims by a customer who claimed that the company falsely advertised the efficacy and safety of its Capillus products. Plaintiff Janice Cooper argued that the company misleadingly represented its products as “physician recommenced” and “clinically proven” without being fully honest about what those statements meant. 

Have you ever encountered an accessibility issue with a service? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Williams is represented by David P. Force of Stein Saks PLLC.

The Capillus Website ADA Accessibility Class Action Lawsuit is Pamela Williams v. Curallux LLC, Case No. 1:20-cv-04396, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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