In Maryland, your ADA website risk turns on one unusual fact: the Fourth Circuit has never decided whether a standalone website is a “place of public accommodation.” That leaves the state in legal limbo — no clear shield for online-only businesses, no settled rule for plaintiffs — and makes a genuinely accessible site, not a jurisdictional argument, your real protection.

Maryland’s distinct angle: an unsettled Fourth Circuit

Nearly every ADA website case turns on one threshold question: is a website by itself a “place of public accommodation” under Title III of the ADA, or does coverage require a connection to a physical location? The federal appeals courts are split, and Maryland sits in the Fourth Circuit, which has not issued a controlling decision on the question. It is grouped with the Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth as circuits that remain unclear, while the First, Second, and Seventh treat a website as a public accommodation on its own and the Ninth requires a nexus to a brick-and-mortar place (American Bar Association on Title III website compliance; Federalist Society on website Title III litigation). With no binding circuit rule, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland judges decide it case by case (Understanding the ADA on the circuit split).

That ambiguity is the whole story: Maryland defendants get neither the comfort of a settled nexus rule nor the certainty of a plaintiff-friendly circuit — just an outcome that depends on the judge.

This page is general information, not legal advice. Fourth Circuit precedent here is unsettled and Maryland statutes change; consult a qualified Maryland attorney about your situation.

What “unsettled” means for a Maryland business

Read the uncertainty as a reason to fix the site, not gamble on a motion:

  • If you’re online-only — a SaaS product, a direct-to-consumer brand, a service with no storefront — you cannot count on the “it’s not a place” defense that wins in nexus circuits. A District of Maryland judge may accept it or may follow the circuits that read Title III to cover websites directly. You’re betting on which way one judge leans.
  • If you have a physical location — and most Maryland businesses do — the nexus theory reaches you whatever the circuit eventually decides, because your site is plainly tied to a covered place. The unsettled question never even has to be answered to put you in scope.

So the jurisdictional escape hatch a defendant leans on in a settled nexus state is not reliably open here; the defense you control is an accessible site.

Maryland’s own law: the Nonvisual Access standards

Maryland is unusual in a second way: it has had a state nonvisual access regime for IT since before the website-litigation wave. The standards live in COMAR 14.33.02, the Information Technology Nonvisual Access regulations effective March 1, 2005, modeled on (and exceeding) federal Section 508 and binding IT used by non-exempt Executive Branch units (Maryland DoIT Nonvisual Access Regulatory Standards).

The teeth are in procurement. State Finance and Procurement Article § 3.5-311 directs the Secretary of Information Technology to put a Nonvisual Access Clause — COMAR 21.05.08.05 — in every state IT solicitation. A vendor warrants equivalent access by visual and nonvisual means; if it fails to remediate within 12 months of notice, it faces civil penalties of up to $5,000 for a first offense and $10,000 for later ones, plus a duty to indemnify the State (COMAR 21.05.08.05 via Cornell LII).

The standard those systems must meet is explicit. The State of Maryland Digital Accessibility Policy fixes WCAG 2.1 Level AA as the conformance target for web content, documents, and vendor solutions, and tasks DoIT’s Office of Accessibility with enforcing COMAR 14.33.02 (Maryland DoIT Digital Accessibility Policy, PDF). The same WCAG 2.1 AA bar runs through the DOJ’s Title II web rule, whose deadline for governments serving 50,000-plus people was April 24, 2026 (ADA.gov Title II web rule). None of this binds a private business directly, but it pulls WCAG 2.1 AA into every State contract a vendor signs and settles which standard a Maryland decision-maker recognizes (WCAG 2.1 AA explainer).

Who is getting sued — and where Maryland fits

Maryland is not a top filing state. National website-accessibility litigation stayed heavy in 2025 — roughly 3,117 federal website suits, up about 27% over 2024 — but the volume concentrates in settled, plaintiff-friendly venues led by New York (about 1,021 filings) and Florida (Seyfarth ADA Title III tracker). Serial filers route cases to courthouses where the law already favors them; the District of Maryland’s unsettled posture makes it a less predictable bet.

But “fewer filings” is not “no filings,” and Maryland has a homegrown reminder this bar is active: in 2023 a Maryland-based attorney who had filed more than 600 ADA hotel-website lawsuits nationwide was suspended by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland for misconduct tied to that tester litigation (The Daily Record). Maryland businesses still receive these claims as federal suits in Baltimore or Greenbelt and, more often, as pre-suit demand letters — hitting the national pattern of targets (e-commerce, hospitality, healthcare) over familiar barriers: missing alt text, unlabeled fields, weak contrast, and content unreachable by keyboard (ADA.gov web accessibility guidance). If a letter has arrived, read what to do after an ADA demand letter and how serial plaintiffs operate before you respond.

How a Maryland business reduces exposure

In a settled nexus circuit you can sometimes argue your way out on the threshold question. In Maryland you can’t count on it, so the load-bearing move is a site that survives a screen-reader test.

  1. Audit against WCAG 2.1 AA. It’s the bar Maryland’s own policy and the DOJ both name, so it’s the standard a District of Maryland judge is least likely to question. Start with a manual accessibility audit pairing automated scanning with keyboard and screen-reader testing (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver) — the same mix Maryland requires of its vendors. Automated tools catch only a fraction of failures; the ones they miss are exactly what a plaintiff’s expert documents.
  2. Remediate the real code. Because you can’t rely on the “it’s not a place” defense here, a genuinely usable site is your strongest position. Manual remediation rewrites the HTML, ARIA, and JavaScript by hand — real alt text, contrast meeting the 4.5:1 threshold, full keyboard operability, and accessible forms with associated labels. Curbcut is deliberately anti-overlay: a widget paints over source code at runtime and hasn’t stopped these suits (why overlays don’t work).
  3. Document the conformance. Keep your audit reports and remediation log, and publish an accessibility statement naming WCAG 2.1 AA. That paper trail does double duty: it supports a good-faith, mootness-style position if a tester sues, and it is the exact evidence — including the Accessibility Conformance Report — a procurement officer expects under the Nonvisual Access Clause if you sell into the public sector.

That program costs less than one round of District of Maryland litigation. Find out where your site stands with a free accessibility scan, then let [EXPERT_NAME] and the [AGENCY_NAME] team remediate by hand.

The bottom line for Maryland

Maryland’s profile is defined by what’s missing: a settled Fourth Circuit answer. Online-only businesses can’t bank on the “it’s not a place” defense, and the typical store-plus-website operation is in scope however the question resolves. Meanwhile the state’s own house is in order — COMAR 14.33.02, the § 3.5-311 Nonvisual Access Clause, and the Digital Accessibility Policy all point at one number: WCAG 2.1 AA. The variable you control is whether your site meets that bar when someone tests it — and that’s what Curbcut remediates by hand, file by file, not behind a widget. For the federal baselines, see ADA.gov and the W3C WAI.