Seidenberg v. Summit Bank is a 2002 New Jersey appellate decision about a commercial banking contract, not an Americans with Disabilities Act case about ATMs. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, decided it on February 28, 2002, and it addressed whether the plaintiffs had stated a viable claim for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. No ADA claim, no accessibility issue, and no ATM appeared anywhere in the case.1FindLaw. Seidenberg v. Summit Bank (2002)
What the Court Actually Held
The plaintiffs alleged that Summit Bank had undermined the purpose of their contract following a commercial banking transaction. The trial court dismissed the claim, finding it did not state a viable cause of action. The Appellate Division reversed, holding that the dismissal was premature and that the good faith and fair dealing claim deserved further consideration on the merits.1FindLaw. Seidenberg v. Summit Bank (2002)
The ruling turned on a familiar principle of New Jersey contract law: every contract carries an implied promise that neither party will destroy the other’s right to receive the benefits of the agreement. The appellate court decided the plaintiffs deserved the chance to prove that Summit had done exactly that. It did not decide whether Summit had actually breached anything. It only decided the case should not have been thrown out at the pleading stage.
Why People Confuse It With an ATM Accessibility Case
The name gets attached to ATM accessibility litigation on various legal summaries and study aids, but the connection is wrong. The confusion probably comes from the fact that both this case and the real ATM accessibility cases involved banks. That is the only overlap. Seidenberg is a contract case between commercial parties. The ATM accessibility cases were federal ADA lawsuits brought by disability rights organizations against banks and manufacturers over machines that blind customers could not use.
If you searched for Seidenberg v. Summit Bank expecting to find the origin of talking ATMs, you were pointed at the wrong case. The rest of this article covers what you were probably looking for.
The Real ATM Accessibility Lawsuits
On May 24, 2000, the National Federation of the Blind, its District of Columbia affiliate, the Disability Rights Council of Greater Washington, and several blind individuals filed two federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The first sued Chevy Chase Bank, alleging that its more than 800 ATMs across Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia violated the ADA because every prompt appeared only as text on a screen. The second sued Rite Aid Corporation and Diebold, the ATM manufacturer, over machines Diebold was installing in Rite Aid stores that used the same visual-only design. Both suits asked the court to require modifications so that blind customers could complete transactions on their own.
The problem was simple. ATMs delivered every instruction through the screen. Braille labels on some keypads identified individual keys but could not convey the changing prompts that guide a user through a withdrawal, balance inquiry, or transfer. A blind customer had no way to know what the screen was asking.
Chevy Chase Bank
The Chevy Chase lawsuit settled with an agreement requiring the bank to upgrade more than 500 ATMs in the D.C. metropolitan area with voice-guided technology. The settlement set a rollout timetable and required audio guidance for every step of every transaction the machines offered.
Diebold
The Diebold case took a different route. The NFB dropped its lawsuit after Diebold agreed to work with the organization on a cost-effective voice-guided ATM that blind customers could use without sighted help. Diebold committed to replacing the machines in Rite Aid stores with voice-capable models, adapting the technology across its entire U.S. product line, and contributing $1 million over five years to the NFB’s National Research and Training Institute for the Blind. Every ATM Diebold built to the new guidelines carried the NFB’s Seal of Approval.
Because Diebold was one of the largest ATM makers in the country, its manufacturer-level commitment spread accessible technology well beyond any single bank’s network.
Structured Negotiations With Other Banks
A parallel effort produced even broader results without going to court. Attorneys Lainey Feingold and Linda Dardarian worked with blind advocacy organizations and major banks through structured negotiation, reaching binding agreements on ATM accessibility.
In 2001, Bank of America announced it would install 7,000 talking ATMs nationwide, delivering spoken instructions through standard headphone jacks so users could listen privately. Rollout targeted completion by the end of 2005, and by early 2008 the bank operated more than 11,000 talking ATMs. Similar agreements followed with Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, Fleet Bank, TCF Bank, Sovereign Bank, Union Bank, Bank One, and LaSalle Bank, among others. Each deal was tailored to the bank’s operations, but all shared the same core requirement: the machine had to speak every piece of information a sighted user would see on the screen, delivered privately through a headphone jack.
The ADA Title III Foundation
Every one of these cases and agreements rested on Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability in the “full and equal enjoyment” of goods and services offered by any place of public accommodation.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 12182 – Prohibition of Discrimination by Public Accommodations
The argument was that a bank is a place of public accommodation and an ATM is how the bank delivers its services. If the ATM only works for sighted users, blind customers are being denied equal access. The statute prohibits providing a service “that is not equal to that afforded to other individuals” and bars offering separate or different services unless doing so is necessary to provide an equally effective experience.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 12182 – Prohibition of Discrimination by Public Accommodations A screen-only ATM fails both tests. The Department of Justice’s Title III regulations reinforced that reading, confirming the ADA’s reach extends beyond physical building access to services delivered through technology.3ADA.gov. Americans with Disabilities Act Title III Regulations
What the ATM Cases Produced
The settlements and negotiated agreements eventually became binding federal design standards. The 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, incorporated into the DOJ’s Title III regulations, spell out what a newly installed or altered ATM must do.
Every ATM must be speech-enabled. Operating instructions, transaction prompts, input confirmations, error messages, and all information needed to complete a transaction must be available through audio, delivered through a mechanism readily available to all users such as a standard headphone jack or a telephone handset. Users must be able to repeat and interrupt the speech, and volume must be adjustable. Additional functions the machine offers, like dispensing coupons or printing statements, must also be speech-accessible.4ADA.gov. 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design
ATMs must offer the same degree of privacy for input and output to all users. For speech output users, that means the option to render the visible screen blank so bystanders cannot read transaction details while the customer listens through headphones.4ADA.gov. 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design
Physical controls have their own requirements. Every function needs at least one tactile input control identifiable by touch. Numeric keys must follow the standard 12-key telephone layout, and the number five key must be tactilely distinct so users can orient their fingers. Function keys carry specific raised symbols: a raised circle for Enter or Proceed, a raised left arrow for Clear or Correct, a raised letter X for Cancel, a raised plus sign for Add Value, and a raised minus sign for Decrease Value. Function keys must also contrast visually from their surrounding surfaces.4ADA.gov. 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design
The talking ATM is now so routine that most sighted customers have never noticed the headphone jack on the side of the machine. That ubiquity came from federal lawsuits, structured negotiations, and manufacturer commitments starting in 2000. It did not come from Seidenberg v. Summit Bank.