Public accomodation

Abstract

January/February 2003 8 October 2002 saw the addition of two new pieces to the jigsaw puzzle that is web accessibility case law in the US. Unfortunately, one of them does not fit. In the first ruling of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz found that Southwest Airlines did not have to modify its web site to meet the needs of a blind user, Robert Gumson. But only a week later and a few states away, Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. ruled that Atlanta's Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) would have to change its site to provide timetable information to visually impaired users. Needless to say this situation was more than a little confusing to anyone involved in web site design and development.