Litigation Risk — Methodology & Sources
AllyProof flags a site's litigation risk by checking whether its open violations include the accessibility failures most commonly cited in ADA website complaints. This page documents the data sources behind the rating so you (or your client) can verify where the numbers come from.
What we measure
Two distinct statistics show up in accessibility-lawsuit research, and they are often confused:
- Issue prevalence on real websites — the share of homepages that actually have a given failure. Measured by WebAIM Million, which scans the top 1,000,000 home pages every year.
- Issue citation in ADA complaints — the share of actual Title III lawsuits that name a given failure. Tracked by UsableNet's annual ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Report and Seyfarth Shaw's ADA Title III Report.
Neither source publishes a clean per-axe-core-rule table of citation rates — lawsuit complaints cite WCAG failure categories, not specific rule IDs. The percentages AllyProof shows on the Litigation Risk card are therefore a composite indicator: how often a given rule's category appears in lawsuit analysis summaries, cross-checked against WebAIM Million's site prevalence data. We treat them as “commonly cited” proxies, not primary measurements.
Background on ADA web-accessibility litigation
- ~4,000–5,000 lawsuits filed annually in the US. Tracked by Seyfarth Shaw and Accessibility.com's lawsuit tracker, with year-over-year growth documented through 2024.
- ADA Title II (public entities) final rule took effect April 24, 2026 for larger entities, April 26, 2027 for smaller ones — ADA.gov rule page.
- EU Accessibility Act (EAA) in effect from June 28, 2025 — European Commission overview.
Top issues by rule
The rules below drive the Litigation Risk score. Each row links to the canonical axe-core documentation (what we check in the scan) and to the WCAG criterion that governs it.
| axe-core rule | WCAG | Issue | Prevalence |
|---|---|---|---|
image-alt | 1.1.1 | Images missing alternative text | ~55% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
label | 3.3.2 / 4.1.2 | Form inputs without labels | ~49% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
color-contrast | 1.4.3 | Insufficient text color contrast | ~81% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
bypass | 2.4.1 | No skip-navigation link or landmark regions | Frequent category in complaint analyses (UsableNet) |
link-name | 2.4.4 | Empty links (no accessible name) | ~45% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
button-name | 4.1.2 | Empty buttons (no accessible name) | ~28% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
html-has-lang | 3.1.1 | Missing lang attribute on the root element | ~17% of home pages (WebAIM Million) |
Prevalence figures are approximate and shift each year as the WebAIM Million is re-run — always read the link for the current-year number. The percentages on the Litigation Risk card are historical composite values; we update them when a new WebAIM Million report lands.
Risk rating logic
Rating is driven by whether any of the rules above appear in your open violations, and how severe they are:
| Rating | Trigger |
|---|---|
| High | One or more matching rules have critical or serious impact. These are the ones most likely to be cited if your site is targeted. |
| Medium | Matching rules are present but only at moderate or minor impact. |
| Low | No matching rules are open. |
Authoritative sources
- WebAIM Million Annual Accessibility Report — automated scan of the top 1M home pages. The most reliable per-rule prevalence source.
- UsableNet ADA Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Report — annual recap of US Title III filings, industries hit, and repeat-defendant patterns.
- Seyfarth Shaw ADA Title III News & Insights — long-running quarterly tracker of ADA Title III lawsuit volume.
- Accessibility.com Digital Accessibility Lawsuit Tracker — running count of filings by year.
- WCAG 2.2 (W3C Recommendation) — authoritative text of the Level A/AA/AAA success criteria we check against.
- Deque University axe-core rule docs — per-rule technical descriptions for the engine that powers AllyProof's scans.
Limitations
- Not legal advice. The Litigation Risk rating is an informational tool based on publicly available accessibility data. Consult an attorney for legal guidance on your specific situation.
- Automated coverage only. The rating is computed from violations detectable by axe-core + HTML_CodeSniffer. A number of lawsuit-cited failures (keyboard traps, CAPTCHA, complex ARIA interactions) require manual testing.
- Prevalence changes over time. The percentages shown on the card are a snapshot; follow the source links above for the current-year figures.
- Low does not mean zero. A Low rating means minimal risk from automated findings. Manual-only issues can still create exposure.