The Website for Sally’s Beauty Supply Inaccessible to Visually Impaired, Class Action Alleges

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Website for Sally’s Beauty Supply ADA Class Action Lawsuit Overview: 

• Who: Sally Beauty has been hit with a class action lawsuit for allegedly denying equal access to blind and visually impaired consumers.
• What: The consumers allege the company fails to have an accessible website, violating consumers’ civil rights.
• Where: The lawsuit was filed in California on behalf of consumers nationwide.

The website for Sally’s Beauty Supply is inaccessible to blind and visually impaired consumers, violating consumers’ civil rights, a new class action lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit was filed in California last week by lead plaintiff Thuy Thanh Alonzo who alleges Sally Beauty Supply LLC and its management violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (UCRA) by failing to design, construct, maintain, and operate a website that is fully and equally accessible to and independently usable by blind or visually impaired people.

Alonzo, who is legally blind and requires screen-reading software to read website content, says that she tried to access the beauty products site numerous times, but has encountered barriers to access including lack of alternative text, empty links that contain no text, and linked images missing alt-text.

“Inaccessible or otherwise non-compliant websites pose significant access barriers to blind and visually impaired persons,” she says in the claim.

She adds that in today’s tech-savvy world, blind and visually impaired people have the ability to access websites using keyboards in conjunction with screen access software that vocalizes the visual information found on a computer screen.

Simple Tech Could Make The Website for Sally’s Beauty Supply Accessible 

Screen-reading software is currently the only method a blind or visually impaired person may use to independently access the internet. Unless websites are designed to be read by screen-reading software, blind and visually impaired persons are unable to fully access websites, and the information, products, and services contained on them, she says.

“For screen-reading software to function, the information on a website must be capable of being rendered into text,” the class action lawsuit explains.

“If the website content is not capable of being rendered into text, the blind or visually impaired user is unable to access the same content available to sighted users.”

Alonzo says that because website for Sally’s Beauty Supply is not fully or equally accessible to blind and visually impaired consumers “in violation of the ADA,” she seeks a permanent injunction to cause a change in the company’s corporate policies, practices, and procedures “so that the website will become and remain accessible to blind and visually impaired consumers.”

She wants to represent anyone who has tried to use the website with screen reading software. She is suing for violations of the ADA and UCRA and seeks certification of the Class, injunctive relief, damages of $4,000 per offense per person, interest, legal fees and costs, and a jury trial.

Sally Beauty is not the only company blind consumers have had trouble accessing on the internet. Recently, the owner of American Eagle stores was hit with a class action lawsuit claiming its website presented numerous access barriers to visually impaired consumers. 

Last month, a visually impaired man lodged a class action lawsuit against Duke’s Mayo for not being able to get his mayo fix through the company’s website. 

Have you ever faced access barriers to the website for Sally’s Beauty Supply or another company? Tell us your experience in the comments section!

Alonzo is represented by Thiago M. Coelho and Binyamin I. Manoucheri of Wilshire Law Firm.

The Sally Beauty ADA Class Action Lawsuit is Alonzo v. Sally Beauty Supply LLC, et al., Case No. 2:21-cv-07826 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

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