My Shopify store was sued for ADA non-compliance. What happens now?

You are not alone, and the case is manageable. In the next few days you need three things: an attorney who handles ADA Title III website cases, a technical audit of your store against WCAG 2.2, and a remediation plan with dates. Most cases settle. What you fix and document now shapes the cost.

By Gersen Medina. Published September 5, 2026. Updated September 5, 2026.

First, what you received

Two different documents reach Shopify merchants, and they call for different responses.

A demand letter comes from a plaintiff's law firm before any filing. It lists WCAG failures found on your store, cites Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and asks for a settlement payment. According to TestParty's review of 2025 and 2026 lawsuit data, the initial demand usually sits between $1,500 and $5,000, the letter gives 30 to 60 days to respond before the firm files, and it asks for a commitment to remediate within 60 to 90 days. The letter itself, part by part, is covered in Shopify ADA demand letter: what it means and how the response window works.

A complaint means the lawsuit was filed in court and you were served. The court's rules set a short deadline to respond, counted in weeks. Your attorney will give you the exact date. Missing it can lead to a default judgment, which is the one outcome that costs more than any settlement.

Shopify stores are the most common target. In EcomBack's report on the first quarter of 2026, Shopify was identified in 459 lawsuits, 44% of all the ADA website lawsuits it tracked. Restaurants and food and beverage (32%) and fashion and apparel (25%) were the most sued industries. The letter you received is a form the firm sends many times a week, which is also why the response can follow a known path.

The clock that started

Three dates matter from the day the letter or complaint arrived:

  • The response deadline in the letter, usually 30 to 60 days, or the court's deadline if you were served
  • The remediation commitment your attorney negotiates, usually 60 to 90 days after the response
  • Any date on which the plaintiff's expert will re-test the store, which is often written into the settlement

Everything below is organized around meeting the first date with something better than a payment: a documented plan to fix the store.

What to do in the first seven days

  1. Record what arrived and when

    Keep the envelope or the email, note the date you received it, and do not reply to the firm yourself. Every deadline counts from that date.

  2. Hire an attorney who handles ADA website cases

    Not every business lawyer does. Ask how many Title III website matters they have handled and how they usually resolve. Ask your insurance broker whether any of your policies respond to this kind of claim.

  3. Preserve the store as it is

    Duplicate the live theme in the Shopify admin and download the copy. Take full-page screenshots of the home page, a collection, a product, the cart and the contact page. This is your record of the state the plaintiff tested, and it protects you from claims about changes made later.

  4. Get a technical audit against WCAG 2.2 AA

    Manual testing with a screen reader and a keyboard, plus automated checks, on the templates named in the letter and on the ones it missed. The output is a list of failures mapped to WCAG success criteria, ordered by what the letter names and what blocks a purchase.

  5. Give your attorney a plan with dates

    The audit becomes a remediation plan: what will be fixed, in which order, by when, and how it will be verified. Your attorney uses it in the response and in the negotiation. A plan with dates is the strongest thing you can put in front of a plaintiff's firm short of a finished remediation.

What not to do

  • Do not install an accessibility overlay or widget. It does not change the code of your theme, and a quarter of the lawsuits in the EcomBack report above were filed against sites that already had one. See why a widget will not protect your store.
  • Do not reply to the plaintiff's firm yourself. Anything you write can be used in the case. Your attorney responds.
  • Do not make untracked changes to the theme. Fixes are good; fixes with no record of what changed and when are hard to present as evidence.
  • Do not assume Shopify will handle it. Shopify maintains the platform and the checkout. The theme, the apps you installed and the content you added are yours to fix.
  • Do not ignore it. Letters escalate to filings, and filings that are not answered end in default judgments.

How the technical remediation works

Remediation means changing the theme's code so that the failures are gone, then proving it. In practice it runs in four steps: an audit, fixes in Liquid, HTML, CSS and JavaScript on a copy of the theme, retesting with screen readers and a keyboard, and an evidence package for your attorney. The full process, the failures that come up in almost every Shopify store, and the deliverables are described on the Shopify accessibility remediation service page.

What your attorney needs from the technical side

  • The audit report, with each failure mapped to a WCAG 2.2 success criterion and the template it appears on
  • The remediation plan with dates, in the order the attorney can commit to
  • A changelog of every theme file touched, with dates
  • Before and after evidence for each fix: screenshots, screen reader output, test results by criterion
  • An accessibility statement published on the store, with a contact route and known limitations
  • A short plan for keeping new products, images and apps accessible after the case closes

Each of these is described, with what the other side will look for, in how to document Shopify accessibility remediation for plaintiff's counsel.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just pay the settlement and move on?

You can, and your attorney may recommend it. But paying without fixing the store leaves the same failures in place for the next plaintiff. Repeat filings against companies that were sued before are common. Remediation plus documentation is what makes the second letter unlikely and easy to answer if it comes.

Does installing an accessibility widget count as remediation?

No. A widget adds a script on top of the store and leaves the theme's code unchanged, so the failures a plaintiff's expert finds with a screen reader are still there. In EcomBack's first quarter 2026 report, about one in four lawsuits targeted sites that already had a widget installed.

Should I move to another platform?

Almost never. The failures named in these letters live in the theme, the apps and the content, not in Shopify itself. Moving platforms restarts everything and does not remove the exposure. Fixing the theme you have is faster and gives your attorney a record of what changed.

How fast can the store be remediated?

It depends on the theme, the number of templates and the apps installed. The audit comes first and produces a plan with dates that fits the commitment your attorney negotiates, typically 60 to 90 days from the response.

Does the ADA even apply to an online-only store?

Whether Title III applies to a website with no physical location is argued case by case and is a question for your attorney. In practice, lawsuits and demand letters are sent to online-only stores every week, and the technical response is the same either way: audit, remediate toward WCAG 2.2 AA, and document it.

Start with the letter

If you want the technical side handled, send the demand letter or complaint and your store URL to gersen@gersenmedina.com. Gersen reads every message himself and replies with the scope for the audit and the next step.

Gersen Medina, portrait

Gersen Medina is a Shopify accessibility specialist who remediates ADA and WCAG 2.2 issues on Shopify stores that have received demand letters or lawsuits. Working with U.S. companies since 2014, his remediation work has helped dozens of merchants avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in accessibility litigation exposure. About Gersen