This story first broke on July 10, 2026, though this is an ongoing legislative process, not a single event.
UPDATED: as of July 17, 2026, the bill (SB 84) passed the Senate but died in the Assembly Judiciary Committee with no hearing scheduled, meaning it is not moving toward becoming law. (Long Beach Post)
Right now in California, a business can be sued over an inaccessible website with zero warning and no chance to fix it first. A bill working through the state legislature would change that.
The Bill Would Require Notice and a 120-Day Window to Fix Issues
Under current California law, an inaccessible website can trigger a lawsuit carrying at least $4,000 in statutory damages per visit, with no requirement that the business be told about the problem beforehand. The pending legislation would require a detailed notice explaining what’s wrong, followed by a 120-day window to fix it, before a lawsuit could move forward and before damages could apply.
This directly responds to a pattern covered in a related story about small businesses becoming the top target for these lawsuits, since most of the businesses getting hit right now had no idea anything was wrong until the demand letter arrived.
What This Means Right Now
- This bill hasn’t passed. Until it does, current California law still applies, no warning, no grace period.
- If you have customers or visitors in California, this is worth watching, but it isn’t a reason to wait on fixing accessibility issues in the meantime.
- A notice-and-cure period, if it passes, would still require the underlying issue to actually get fixed within the window. It doesn’t remove the need to have an accessible site, it just changes how much warning you’d get first.
Whether or not this bill passes, the safest position is the same either way: know what’s actually on your site before someone else finds it first. A basic accessibility check costs far less than either outcome.
Source: Corey & Partners