Online trading company eToro USA LLC is seeking to rebuff accusations of disability discrimination. On June 1, 2021, the broker filed a motion to dismiss at the New York Southern District Court. The purpose of the document, seen by FX News Group, is to convince the Court that it has to nix a complaint brought by Cristian Sanchez.
The plaintiff alleges he is a visually-impaired and legally blind person residing in the State of New York. He claims to have visited the website of eToro on an unspecified number of occasions (most recently in March 2021) and to have “encountered multiple access barriers that denied Plaintiff full and equal access to the facilities, goods and services offered to the public and made available to the public; and that denied Plaintiff the full enjoyment of the facilities, goods and services of the Website.”
The plaintiff claims that eToro discriminated against him on the basis of his disability in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to make its Internet website accessible to blind persons.
According to eToro, Sanchez’s claims suffer from two fatal legal deficiencies.
First, eToro is not subject to personal jurisdiction in New York. The website on which the plaintiff bases his claim was effectively passive for New York residents. Also, New York residents could not conduct cryptocurrency trades or access any of eToro’s products or services through the website. It is black-letter law that a passive Internet website like eToro’s, even if accessible by New York residents, is insufficient to confer personal jurisdiction.
Because eToro has no other contacts with the State of New York that could anchor this Court’s exercise of jurisdiction, the Complaint must be dismissed, the company says.
Second, the ADA does not apply to a fully online business like eToro that lacks any “brick and mortar” offices that could qualify as a “place of public accommodation” where members of the public can purchase goods or services. While this issue has divided federal courts across the country, the better-reasoned view is that the ADA’s plain and unambiguous language, when read in light of applicable canons of statutory construction, compels this result.
The ADA only applies to commercial websites that have a nexus to, or operate in tandem with, a company’s physical, “brick and mortar” stores. It simply does not cover websites operated by companies that, like eToro, provide their services entirely over the Internet.
eToro concludes that the Court should grant its motion and dismiss the Complaint in its entirety with prejudice.
