ADA Lawsuits in Florida: What Restaurant Owners Need to Know

ADA lawsuits hit Florida federal courts 1,823 times in 2025, up 73% from 1,054 in 2021. During the same period, national ADA filings fell 24%. Florida now accounts for 21% of all federal ADA Title III lawsuits, up from 9.2% in 2021. One in five federal ADA cases is now filed in Florida.

The year-by-year trend, drawn from Seyfarth Shaw's annual reports, shows what happened:

Florida was #3 nationally behind New York and California from 2019 through 2024. In 2025 it overtook New York. The national pie is shrinking, and Florida has taken a larger slice of it every year since 2021.

That statewide total covers all public accommodations, not just restaurants. The restaurant-specific angle is narrower: in EcomBack's national H1 2025 website-litigation data, the broad "Restaurant, Food, Drinks & Beverages" category was the largest industry group at about 30% of web accessibility filings. That's a national figure, not Florida-specific, but it indicates where the targeting concentrates.

Why Florida draws more suits than most states

Under federal law, ADA Title III plaintiffs can only get injunctive relief, not damages. But Florida's Civil Rights Act gives plaintiffs a separate state route to compensatory and punitive damages. A plaintiff who'd recover nothing beyond attorney's fees in federal court can pursue real money in Florida.

A plaintiff with a disability visits a non-compliant website or walks into a restaurant with a barrier. They file. The business owner gets a demand letter. The cases below put numbers on what happens next: serial filers demand $2,500 to $9,000, one Gainesville pizzeria was asked for $6,000, and a Jacksonville steakhouse reportedly settled for about $20,000. Most owners settle.

Andres Gomez has filed hundreds of ADA lawsuits against South Florida businesses, with settlement demands of $2,500 to $9,000. Attorney Aleksandra Kravets has filed dozens more across the state.

Physical access and websites are both targets

Website accessibility suits in Florida doubled from 470 in 2024 to 961 in 2025. That 961 represents 52.7% of all Florida ADA filings, the first year website cases became the majority. (The remaining 47.3% includes physical-access suits, service animal disputes, effective communication claims, and other Title III actions.) In 2021, website cases were 17.6% of the Florida total.

Nationally, EcomBack's H1 2025 report found that about 22.6% of web accessibility suits targeted websites with an overlay widget already installed (other accessibility trackers show different widget-detection numbers, so treat this as directional rather than exact). An overlay does not keep a demand letter away.

Two restaurants, two outcomes

Satchel's Pizza in Gainesville was sued over its website by a plaintiff who'd filed 52 similar suits in 18 months. The demand was $6,000. Owner Satchel Raye refused and fought the case. It was dismissed with prejudice, meaning the plaintiff can never refile. Raye won, but he's an outlier. Most owners don't have the appetite or the legal budget for that fight.

Cowford Chophouse in Jacksonville was sued over the same kind of website issues. The owner's attorneys told him he could fight but would likely lose. He reportedly settled for approximately $20,000 including attorney's fees.

Both cases were about websites and involved serial plaintiffs or their attorneys; the two owners made opposite decisions on whether to fight.

What the demand letter triggers

Florida ADA defense firms give consistent advice: have an attorney review the claim before you respond or settle, and start fixing the cited barriers, on the premises or on the website, while the legal case plays out. Title III's barrier removal duty does not end when a suit settles or gets dismissed. Where a fix is readily achievable, the cost is owed either way.

No legislative change this session

Florida's 2026 legislative session ended on March 13. No ADA-specific reform bill passed. The filing trend has climbed for four straight years (1,054, 1,350, 1,415, 1,627, 1,823). The litigation environment that produced the 2021-2025 increase remains intact. Accessibility barriers belong in the same Florida health and safety records set as incident and hazard logs.