A new ADA “notice and cure” bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives, and while the stated motivation is to curb abusive litigation, the mechanism it uses is fundamentally hostile to the purpose of civil rights law. The bill is H.R. 8396, the ADA Compliance for Customer Entry to Stores and Sites Act of 2026, also known as the ACCESS Act of 2026. It was introduced by Representative Ken Calvert of California and cosponsored by Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lou Correa of California and Representative Randy Fine of Florida.
The bill would amend the Americans with Disabilities Act to require a person with a disability to notify a business of an ADA violation in writing before filing a private civil action. After receiving that notice, the business would have 60 days to provide the complainant with a written description of the improvements it intends to make. The business would then receive an additional 60 days to remove the barrier or make substantial progress toward doing so. In practice, that creates at least a 120-day period during which a person with a disability may continue to be denied access to a business, service, website, or mobile application before they can then pursue litigation to enforce their rights.
The political justification for bills like this is always the same: there are too many ADA lawsuits, some of them are brought by plaintiffs and lawyers who are more interested in a quick settlement than meaningful access, and businesses deserve a chance to fix problems before being sued. There is some truth in the concern about abusive litigation. Nobody who cares about disability rights should defend lawyers who exploit the ADA for settlement revenue while doing little or nothing to improve accessibility. But the existence of abusive litigation does not justify weakening the civil rights of people with disabilities. If the problem is unethical lawyers, then address unethical lawyers. If the problem is abusive demand letters, then regulate abusive demand letters. If the problem is bad-faith litigation, then sanction bad-faith litigation. Do not make disabled people wait months before they can enforce rights they already have.
Notice and cure is especially inappropriate because the ADA is not new. It was enacted in 1990. Businesses have had more than three decades to understand that discrimination against people with disabilities is illegal. The duty to provide equal access does not begin when a disabled person sends a written complaint. It does not begin when a lawyer files a demand letter. It does not begin when a lawsuit is served. The duty exists because the business is open to the public and because the law has long required public accommodations to be accessible.
Notice and cure treats disability discrimination as if it is somehow less urgent, less harmful, and less worthy of immediate enforcement than other forms of discrimination. We do not generally require someone who experiences racial discrimination to send a written notice and wait 120 days before enforcing their rights. We do not tell someone denied service because of religion to give the business time to develop a corrective action plan. We do not tell someone discriminated against because of sex that the discriminatory conduct is temporarily acceptable as long as the business makes substantial progress toward stopping it.
Yet that is exactly what notice and cure does to people with disabilities. It creates a lesser version of civil rights enforcement and applies it to a group of people who already experience systemic exclusion from public life. It says that access is required, but not immediately. It says discrimination is prohibited, but not quite yet. It says the disabled person has rights, but only after they have performed the work of notifying the business, waiting for a response, and waiting again for a fix or partial fix.
That burden-shifting is one of the most offensive features of notice and cure. A person with a disability who encounters an inaccessible business is not there to serve as a compliance auditor. They are not there to provide free consulting. They are not there to manage the business’s remediation timeline. They are there to buy groceries, book a hotel room, attend a concert, visit a doctor, reserve a table, use a banking app, fill out a form, or do any of the other ordinary things that non-disabled people do without first having to trigger a statutory waiting period.
The ACCESS Act is also broader than some earlier notice-and-cure proposals because it applies to both architectural and technological barriers. That means this is not only about steps at entrances, inaccessible bathrooms, parking spaces, counters, or routes through a store. It also reaches websites, mobile apps, online reservation systems, digital forms, checkout flows, kiosks, and other technologies that now mediate access to goods and services. In 2026, digital access is not a luxury or a niche concern. For many businesses, the website or mobile app is the front door.
That broader coverage makes the bill more dangerous, not less. If a blind customer cannot complete an online purchase because the checkout flow is inaccessible, the harm is not theoretical. If a disabled patient cannot complete a medical form because the form is inaccessible, the harm is not theoretical. If a Deaf customer cannot access essential video content because it lacks captions, the harm is not theoretical. If a person with a mobility disability cannot reserve an accessible hotel room because the booking system is inaccessible or fails to provide required information, the harm is not theoretical. These are not abstract compliance defects. They are barriers to full participation in everyday life.
Supporters of notice and cure often describe the waiting period as though it is a reasonable administrative step. That framing only works if one ignores what the disabled person experiences during the waiting period. During those 120 days, the person may still be unable to enter the business, use the service, complete the transaction, access the information, or participate in the activity. The business continues to operate. Non-disabled customers continue to receive goods and services. The disabled person is told to wait.
The phrase “substantial progress” makes the problem worse. It may sound reasonable in legislative language, but it is a poor substitute for access. A wheelchair user cannot enter a restaurant through “substantial progress”. A blind person cannot complete a purchase through “substantial progress”. A Deaf person cannot understand uncaptioned video through “substantial progress”. A person with a cognitive disability cannot successfully navigate a confusing and inaccessible process through “substantial progress”. Progress matters, and remediation planning is often necessary, but progress is not the same thing as equal access.
There are legitimate ways to reduce abusive ADA litigation without weakening the ADA itself. Courts can sanction bad-faith lawyers. Legislatures can target deceptive demand-letter practices. Bar associations can investigate attorneys who use civil rights statutes as settlement mills. Governments can expand technical assistance, tax incentives, and grant programs to help small businesses remove barriers. Agencies can improve guidance and enforcement. None of those approaches requires forcing disabled people to tolerate ongoing discrimination before they can act.
The deeper issue is that notice and cure rewards delay. It gives businesses an incentive to wait until someone complains rather than proactively comply with the law. Compliant businesses receive no special benefit for doing the right thing in advance, while noncompliant businesses receive a statutory grace period after they are caught. That is backwards. Civil rights laws should encourage proactive compliance, not create a safe harbor for inaction.
It is also worth being understanding what ADA lawsuits actually do. Under Title III of the ADA, private plaintiffs generally seek injunctive relief, not damages. The goal is supposed to be access. That does not eliminate the problem of abusive attorney’s fees or settlement pressure, but it does matter. The legal remedy is already focused on fixing the barrier. Adding a mandatory waiting period does not make the remedy more just. It simply delays enforcement and weakens the leverage of the person facing discrimination. At most, it adds a delay to the eventual payday for the unscrupulous lawyer – many of whom have already proceduralized the process of shotgunning lawsuits anyway. The most active ADA trolls have several cases going on at any given time. This notice and cure period would function as little more than a speedbump for the most prolific ADA trolls.
The ADA exists because voluntary compliance was not enough. People with disabilities were excluded from public accommodations, transportation, employment, communications, government services, and civic life for generations. The law was enacted because access could not be left to goodwill, convenience, or after-the-fact promises. Notice and cure revives the very logic the ADA was meant to reject: that disabled people should ask nicely, wait patiently, and be grateful when access eventually arrives.
That is why notice and cure violates civil rights. It does not merely adjust procedure. It changes the status of the right. It tells people with disabilities that discrimination against them receives a grace period. It places the work of identifying and initiating compliance on the person harmed. It treats ongoing exclusion as acceptable so long as the business says it is working on the problem.
Abusive ADA litigation is a real issue, but it should be addressed directly and honestly. Congress should not respond to bad lawyers by making life harder for disabled people. The answer to abuse is not to weaken enforcement for legitimate claims. The answer is to target the abuse while preserving the civil rights protections that make accessibility enforceable in the first place.
A business open to the public has an obligation to be accessible to the public. That obligation does not begin after written notice. It does not begin after 60 days. It does not begin after 120 days. It begins when the business offers goods and services to the public. Anything less is not equal access. It is discrimination on a schedule.