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Ninth Circuit:
Jury Right Includes Civil Rights Claim for Statutory Damages
Opinion Rejects District Court’s View That Enumerated Recovery Under California’s Unruh Act Would Be Merely Incidental to Equitable Relief Imposed Under Federal Counterpart
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that the right to a trial by jury guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment for “[s]uits at common law” attaches to a claim for statutory damages under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, based on noncompliance with certain federal disability laws, finding that the request is legal in nature even if it is predicated on a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for which injunctive relief is the only option.
Under the governing jurisprudence, the Seventh Amendment extends to statutory claims only if the cause is legal rather than equitable in nature.
At issue is California Civil Code §51, a portion of the Unruh Act, which provides:
“All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion,… disability,…or immigration status are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”
Subdivision (f) provides that “[a] violation of the right of any individual under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990…shall also constitute a violation of this section” and §52 provides for the recovery of “no…less than four thousand dollars ($4,000)” for any violation of §51.
In an opinion written by Senior Circuit Judge Richard R. Clifton, and joined in by Circuit Judge Bridget S. Bade and Senior Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, the court found that historical English common law precedent and the nature of the remedy reveal that the cause of action is in fact legal at its core.
Burbank Hotel
The question arose after serial plaintiff Theresa Brooke, who is confined to a wheelchair and travels from her home in Arizona to hotels in California to “test” their compliance with disability access laws, visited the Ramada by Wyndham located near the Burbank Airport in August 2023.
In September, she filed a complaint against the owner of the establishment, Tsay JBR LLC, asserting a claim under the ADA, based on the absence of a disabled access aisle in the passenger loading zone located in front of the entrance, and a cause of action for discrimination under §52. She sought injunctive relief on her ADA claim and statutory damages under the California law.
After Brooke filed a motion for summary judgment, Chief District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California granted the request in part, finding that the defendant had violated the ADA by not having a compliant passenger loading zone. As a remedy, Gee ordered Tsay JBR to paint a blue access aisle in front of the hotel.
Gee noted that because Brooke had successfully shown a violation of the ADA, she also necessarily established a claim under §51. However, she pointed out that a plaintiff is not automatically entitled to statutory damages under the Unruh Act.
Under §55.56, when an asserted violation of the ADA is construction-related, a party is only entitled to such a recovery if the person personally encountered the violation or was deterred by it, a fact that Gee said the plaintiff had not established.
Bench Trial Set
After initially setting the matter for jury trial on that factual issue, Gee changed course. In light of objections by the defendant, she found that “there is no federal right to a jury trial” on the issue and set the case for a bench trial.
In the “Order Converting Jury Trial to Court Trial,” Gee wrote:
“[A]lthough the Unruh Act provides for minimum statutory damages, this monetary relief is only available where there has been a violation of the ADA and is therefore merely incidental to the ADA’s injunctive relief….Additionally, the Unruh Act explicitly separates actual damages from statutory damages,…suggesting that the $4,000 in statutory damages functions as a penalty that is merely incidental to the injunctive relief and, unlike actual damages, was not intended to be a basis for specific, discretionary, monetary relief.”
The defendant petitioned the Ninth Circuit for a writ of mandamus, asking the court to “direct the district court to set the case for a jury trial.” Yesterday’s opinion granted that request.
Jury Trial Right
Clifton explained that the determination of whether a cause of action is legal or equitable requires a two-step inquiry—courts first compare the claim to “18th-century actions brought in the courts of England” to see if there is a historical common law analog and then look to the nature of the remedy sought to see if it is legal or equitable. He pointed out that the second prong is the “more important” consideration.
Applying that framework, he wrote:
“An Unruh Act claim resembles a legal action under English public accommodations law. In the 18th century, the English common law imposed on certain businesses a duty to serve all customers….Businesses that violated this duty could have been held liable for damages in a court of law.”
Saying that “American courts in the 19th century, including courts in California, adopted the common-law duty to serve all customers,” he opined that there was a “clear parallel between 18th-century English public accommodations law and the Unruh Act.”
Turning to the remedy, he said that if the statutory damages Brooke seeks are “designed to punish or deter the wrongdoer,” the award will be considered legal in nature rather than an attempt to equitably “restore the status quo.”
He pointed out that the California Supreme Court has described the act’s statutory damages as being designed to “punish” intentional bad actions and the legislative history indicates that violations of the ADA were included to “provid[e] persons injured by a violation of the ADA with the remedies provided by the Unruh Act[,]…including punitive damages.”
Under those circumstances, Clinton wrote:
“The statutory damages in section 52(a) of the Unruh Act are thus a legal remedy. Because both the historical analog and the nature of the remedy reveal that Brooke’s claim is legal, we hold that the Seventh Amendment entitles parties in federal court to a jury trial on a claim for statutory damages under section 52(a) of the Unruh Act.”
The case is Tsay JBR LLC v. U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 24-5234.
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