Candycopia, the Lake Street candy retailer in Oak Park, paid a five-figure settlement after being sued over its website's accessibility for people with disabilities.
Co-owner Alycia Mason disclosed the settlement in a social media video in early October, as first reported by the Wednesday Journal. Mason said she had trusted the store's website developers and third-party Shopify apps, not realizing the site was only about 92% compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards, according to the Wednesday Journal's account of the video.
That gap was enough to trigger a lawsuit.
Mason warned other small business owners that they face real legal exposure even with a mostly compliant site. "You get caught and you get a lawsuit and there's nothing you can do," she said in the video, urging owners to invest in proper web engineering before a plaintiff finds them.
The settlement comes as ADA website lawsuits are surging nationwide. A UsableNet midyear report projects approximately 6,176 digital accessibility cases will be filed in 2026, a record. UsableNet ranked Illinois second nationally across all courts, driven largely by a single plaintiff firm, Equal Access Law Group PLLC.
In federal courts specifically, Illinois ranked third with 505 filings in the first half of the year, according to a separate Seyfarth analysis published on JD Supra. Equal Access Law Group filed 336 of those cases.
E-commerce businesses account for 79% of targets nationally. Businesses with revenue under $50 million make up 68% of filings, according to UsableNet. Accessibility widgets have not slowed the trend; the report found plaintiffs increasingly sue companies already using them.
Accessibility advocates respond
Staff at the Progress Center for Independent Living in Forest Park, which serves suburban Cook County residents with disabilities, put the legal numbers in human terms in an interview with the Wednesday Journal. Executive Director Horacio Esparza described spending hours navigating inaccessible airline-ticket websites. Katie O'Neill, a community reintegration specialist at the center, said some sites prioritize visual design over functionality, with features like flashing lights that block her access entirely.
Program Director Eric Peebles, a former small business owner, told the Wednesday Journal that people with disabilities represent a significant and overlooked consumer market. Community organizer Clark Craig echoed that point, saying businesses lose customers when they ignore accessibility.
An estimated 70 million people in the United States live with a functional disability, according to the CDC. The Illinois Assistive Technology Program and the Web Accessibility Initiative offer guidance on compliance standards for business owners looking to audit their sites.
