Sephora Class Action Says Blind Customers Unable to Shop Online

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A blind woman from New York says the Sephora website fails to meet accessibility standards required by federal and state disability laws.

Plaintiff Lucia Marett says she tried to purchase products from defendant Sephora Inc. through its website Sephora.com, but she could not complete the transaction due to the website’s lack of features that would make it accessible to visually disabled persons.

Without such features, the Sephora website violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York State Human Rights Law, she argues.

Marett is legally blind. She says she is able to use a computer, but only with the assistance of screen-reading software. This software can make websites accessible to blind users by reading screen text out loud. Other persons who still have some residual vision can benefit from screen magnification software, which enlarges text to make it readable.

But these accommodations may not work if websites are not designed to work with them, Marett claims. She says the Sephora website is one such site.

According to Marett’s disability discrimination class action lawsuit, the Sephora website fails to implement several readily-available design features that would make it accessible to persons with visual impairments.

Design features like alternative text, accessible forms, descriptive links, and resizeable text can enhance a websites’ usability, Marett says, as can limitation on the use of tables and JavaScript. Other heavily-trafficked retail websites make use of design features like these, Marett says.

Marett cites standards published by the Web Accessibility Initiative and guidelines promulgated under the federal Rehabilitation Act. These guidelines promote the use of features like alt-text, descriptive text appended to image files that can be read aloud by accessibility software.

Websites that can be used entirely with a keyboard and without a mouse are also more accessible, she says.

Marett says the Sephora website lacks accessibility features like these, and as a result, blind persons like herself can’t use it. She says the Sephora website lacks features like alt-text, keyboard-only use, and accessible forms with check boxes and drop-down menus.

Besides retail sales, the Sephora website also offers other information and services that blind persons can’t access, Marett says. Sephora.com offers information about retail store locations, products and gift cards, employment opportunities at Sephora, and the website’s terms and conditions.

Because of the Sephora website’s lack of accessibility, visually impaired persons can’t access this information, Marett claims.

Marett proposes to represent a nationwide Class consisting of all legally blind persons in the U.S. who, during the applicable statutory limitations period, tried to access the Sephora website but were denied access to the same enjoyment of goods and services offered in Sephora retail stores.

She is asking the court for an order requiring the defendant to upgrade the Sephora website so that it can be readily accessed and used by blind persons, in full compliance with ADA requirements. She also seeks an award of damages, court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Marett’s attorneys are C.K. Lee and Anne Seelig of Lee Litigation Group PLLC.

The Sephora Website ADA Class Action Lawsuit is Lucia Marett v. Sephora Inc., Case No. 1:17-cv-00834, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.