My agency built the site and told me it was accessible. If it isn’t and I get sued, am I the one who pays?

Short answer: yes, you. Under the ADA, a plaintiff sues the business running the website. Not the developer, not the agency that built it. Your agency saying “it’s accessible” doesn’t move that off you. It was never theirs to carry.

You might have a claim against your developer later, and your attorney can tell you whether the contract gives you one. But that’s a fight between you and them. It won’t stop the person suing you. It won’t fix the site either. We’re not a law firm, so treat this as background, not legal advice, and check your own situation with a lawyer. Here’s the part that matters: the one thing you actually control is whether the problems are still on your site. So go check that.

Who a plaintiff actually sues

The ADA puts the obligation on the “public accommodation,” which is your business. So that’s who gets named in the complaint. Not the freelancer who coded it, not the agency.

Named in the complaint

You — the business

Not the ADA defendant

Your agency or developer

The case everyone cites is Robles v. Domino’s. It ran against Domino’s, the business, over a website and app a customer couldn’t use with a screen reader. Domino’s owned the storefront, so Domino’s was on the hook.

To the law, it’s your site.

Hand the build to someone else and nothing changes. A wheelchair ramp out front is still your problem even if the contractor poured it wrong.

Why “my agency said it was accessible” isn’t proof

Usually that assurance comes from a free automated scan. Those tools read the page while it sits still. Missing alt text, weak contrast, they’ll catch that. What they can’t see is anything that only breaks when a real person actually works the page.

The classic miss is a keyboard trap: you tab into a menu and can’t tab back out, and everything behind it is stuck. That’s a WCAG 2.1.2 failure at Level A, the lowest bar the standard sets, and a static scan walks straight past it. One US e-commerce site we scanned came back 94/100 with zero axe-core violations and had exactly that trap. We took that case apart here. A plaintiff’s expert tests by hand. So a clean tool report isn’t the shield it sounds like.

What you can actually do about it

You can’t move the liability. What you can decide is whether the defects are still sitting there. Arguing with your agency won’t get you far. What helps is finding out where the site actually stands, fixing what’s broken in the code, and keeping a dated record of the work.

That’s what Fix47 does. We test the site the way a plaintiff’s expert would, keyboard-path layer and all — the layer your agency’s tool almost certainly skipped. Then we fix what’s broken in the code and rescan every month so it stays fixed. Our client Pinsilike went from 73 axe-core violations to zero, and we have monitored it every month since. Nobody can promise you’ll never get sued. What you get is a site that stands up to a real test, and a record that proves you did the work.

Frequently asked questions

My web developer built the site — if it's not accessible, am I liable or are they?

In practice, you are. The ADA puts the obligation on the business that runs the public accommodation, so a plaintiff sues the company whose website it is, not the agency or freelancer who built it. You may have a separate contract claim against your developer, but that's between you and them and doesn't stop the plaintiff coming after you. Fix47 is not a law firm and this isn't legal advice.

My agency told me the site was accessible. Doesn't that protect me?

Not on its own. Most 'it's accessible' assurances rest on a free automated scan, and those tools test the page while it sits still. They miss failures that only appear during interaction, like a keyboard trap, which is a WCAG 2.1.2 Level A failure. A plaintiff's expert tests by hand and finds exactly those. An assurance isn't the same as a site that holds up when someone actually checks it.

Does my contract with the developer move the ADA liability to them?

Generally no, as far as the plaintiff is concerned. An indemnity clause might let you recover costs from your developer afterward, but the ADA claim is still against you as the business. Talk to your attorney about your specific contract, because the wording matters and this is not legal advice.

Can I be sued even if a scanner gave my site a high score?

Yes. A high automated score means the automated checks passed, not that your site meets the standard. One US e-commerce site we scanned came back 94/100 with zero axe-core violations and still had a keyboard focus trap, a Level A failure. Automated tools test the page at rest and can't see interaction failures, which are the ones a plaintiff often points to.

Should I get a widget to cover myself while I sort this out?

A widget doesn't change your site's code, so the defects underneath are still there. In 2025 the FTC fined accessiBe, the largest widget vendor, $1 million over deceptive claims, and 22.6% of the sites sued over accessibility in the first half of 2025 already had a widget installed. It's not the cover it looks like.

What can I actually do about it?

You can't move the legal responsibility off yourself, but you can control whether the defects exist. Find out where your site actually stands, fix the real problems in the code, and keep dated documentation of the work. Fix47's free scan is a way to see your score, including the keyboard-path layer static tools skip, with no signup.

See what your agency’s scan may have missed

You’re on the hook, so you should be the one who knows where the site stands, not your agency. Run the free Fix47 scan on your own site. Takes about a minute, and it runs the keyboard-path layer the static tools skip. You’ll see your score straight away. No signup. Better you find the gaps than a plaintiff does.

Run the free scan