Lawsuit Slices, Dices Website.
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2026 MetroDesk Media, LLC) — A Palm Beach County man who is blind is suing Benihana, claiming the restaurant chain’s website is so poorly designed that he can’t use it with the screen-reading software he relies on every day.
John Marz just filed the lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Civil Court, accusing Benihana Inc. of violating Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the complaint, Marz tried multiple times to use benihana.com to check store hours, look up pricing and book a reservation for two people. He says he kept hitting the same wall: the site simply wasn’t built to work with JAWS, the screen-reading program many blind and visually impaired users depend on to navigate the internet.
The lawsuit — reviewed by BocaNewsNow.com — lays out a handful of specific technical complaints, including a video on the site that plays for more than five seconds with no way to pause it, images missing the coding blind users need to understand what’s on the page, and page elements that aren’t labeled properly for screen readers. Marz, who the suit describes as an ADA “tester” who monitors businesses for accessibility compliance, says the barriers left him unable to do what any sighted customer could do in a few clicks — and that he intends to try the site again once, or if, the problems are fixed.
Marz is asking a judge to order Benihana to bring its website up to ADA standards and to declare that the company’s current site discriminates against blind customers. He’s also seeking a permanent injunction, a separate declaratory judgment, and attorney’s fees and costs. Web accessibility lawsuits against retailers and restaurant chains have become increasingly common in Florida courts in recent years, with plaintiffs’ attorneys arguing that company websites function as an extension of a business’s physical, brick-and-mortar locations. Benihana had not filed a response processed by the Palm Beach County Clerk as of late Wednesday afternoon.
