Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Page 9

Perspectives

District Court’s Dumping of Unruh Act Claim Points to Trend, a Worthy One

By Roger M. Grace

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has stripped a lack-of-access complaint, brought under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”), of an ancillary claim under California’s Unruh Act. Declining to exercise supplemental (“pendent”) jurisdiction in such cases has become a commonplace practice among federal judges in this state, and for good reason. But there’s a twist, an almost humorous aspect, to the particular fact situation presented in the case in which Judge Mark C. Scarsi ruled on Friday.

The plaintiff, a male, who allegedly has difficulty walking and sometimes uses a wheelchair, is suing because it would supposedly be difficult for him to enter a beauty parlor on Western Avenue in the West Adams area— although there’s a barbershop right next door.

Was the objective to get his hair clipped or to participate in an effort to exact money through an oppressive use of a worthy, but oft-abused, statutory scheme?

There are certain law firms—not many—that exploit the statutes, incessantly, deriving ill-deserved gains, often from intimidated merchants who are immigrants with limited skill in the English language.

★

Here’s the M.O. of the abusers: The terrain is prowled for establishments with technical violations—and, aha! A counter is found in a store that is three-quarters of an inch too high. A lawsuit is brought.

The plaintiff proclaims a desire to have traded there and, to meet a pleading requirement, professes an intent to return to the place but only, oh if only, the obstacle were to be removed. It just might be that the store is far from the plaintiff’s home and prospects of that person ever trading there in the future, or ever having wanted to do so in the first place, are remote if not zilch.

Lawsuits of that sort, in huge numbers, are being used as clubs to bully small businesses into forking over settlements, rather than incurring attorney fees in far higher amounts. Such shakedowns caused California to clamp down on disability actions brought by those law firms that, unconscionably, use their respective stables of plaintiffs with disabilities to bring lawsuits aimed at garnering lucre, while wreaking injustice.

★

Under legislation effective Jan. 1, 2013, Code of Civil Procedure §425.50(a) requires, in general, that a lack-of-access complaint set forth whether the action is brought “by, or on behalf of, a high-frequency litigant”—as defined a bit up the road in the code. If the plaintiff is such a litigant, there must be revealed “the number of complaints alleging a construction-related accessibility claim that the high-frequency litigant has filed during the 12 months prior to filing the complaint.”

It must also be set forth “the reason the individual was in the geographic area of the defendant’s business, and “the reason why the individual desired to access the defendant’s business…including the specific commercial, business, personal, social, leisure, recreational, or other purpose.”

Sec. 425.55(b) says that a “high-frequency litigant” is, with stated exceptions, “(1) [a] plaintiff who has filed 10 or more complaints alleging a construction-related accessibility violation within the 12-month period immediately preceding the filing of the current complaint alleging a construction-related accessibility violation.” In the alternative, it’s “(2) ]a]n attorney who has represented as attorney of record 10 or more high-frequency litigant plaintiffs in actions that were resolved within the 12-month period immediately preceding the filing of the current complaint alleging a construction-related accessibility violation….”

Under further legislation, effective Jan. 1, 2015, a high-frequent litigant must pay, under Government Code §70616.5, a $1,000 fee, in addition to normal filing fees.

The federal courts have no such requirements—at least not by statute.

★

So, the idea has been: sue in the U.S. District under the ADA, but tack on a claim under the Unruh Act.

The ADA provides only for injunctive relief. If that counter that’s three-quarters of an inch too high is lowered, the matter is moot; the ADA suit disintegrates.

But California’s Unruh Act is violated by any breach of the ADA, and effecting a fix doesn’t end the matter. Any who has committed a violation “is liable for each and every offense for the actual damages, and any amount that may be determined by a jury, or a court sitting without a jury, up to a maximum of three times the amount of actual damage but in no case less than four thousand dollars ($4,000).”

And attorney fees may also be garnered.

With disability-access cases stacking up in district courts—they accounted for only 3% of the caseload in 2013 and jumped to 17% as of 2024—judges are doing something about deterring the ploy, such as tossing out Unruh claims, where appropriate, based on a lack of standing. That’s predicated on the dubious validity of assertions of an intent to return to the defendant’s premises once the obstruction is removed. A fellow who resides in Inglewood and complains of a barrier that inhibits patronizing a clothes-cleaning establishment in Tarzana is not apt to be regarded as credible.

★

What happened last Friday was that Scarsi declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a claim under the Unruh Civil Rights Act—Civil Code §51 et seq.—in an action brought on July 21 by one Rigoberto Lopez against Greenfield Investments, LLC, which owns the premises occupied by the beauty parlor on Western.

Declining to exercise such jurisdiction requires exceptional circumstances—which Scarsi says exist in the case, explaining:

“[I]it is inconsistent with the principle of fairness to permit Plaintiff to pursue his construction-related accessibility claims in this Court while evading the limitations California has imposed on such claims.”

The reason the action was brought in federal court rather than in the Los Angeles Superior Court is plain. Lopez, a high-frequency litigant, is represented by So. Cal Equal Access Group, run by the Koreatown law firm of Kim, Au & Associates, APC. According to the website of Jeffer Mangels & Mitchell LLP, a prominent firm that has lawyers who specialize in defending against suits such as those brought against Greenfield, So. Cal “files ADA lawsuits almost on a daily basis.”

The Karlin Law Firm, in Century City and Tustin, which also defends against such suits, lists Lopez among “FREQUENT ADA LAWSUIT FILERS” and notes his representation by So. Cal.

★

McCune Law Group, a plaintiffs’ firm, runs website, “Follow Our Courts,” that bills itself as “a news site for Inland Empire cases and legal industry updates.” A Feb. 12, 2024 article by Aidan McGloin says:

“Two thousand, two hundred and fifteen Americans With Disabilities Act lawsuits were filed in the Central District of California in the past year.

“One thousand, eight hundred and twenty five—or 82%—were filed by one attorney.

“Jason Kim of the So Cal Equal Access Group had to file an average of seven cases a weekday to meet those numbers. His pace is consistent From Jan. 1, 2021 to Jan. 1, 2023, he filed 4,482 ADA cases.”

Kim is Lopez’s lawyer.

A footnote in an April 26 order by local District Court Judge Michelle Williams Court, in declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over an Unruh claim, says:

“The Court’s filing system shows 39 separate filings by Rigoberto Lopez since January 15, 2026, which does not begin to account for the hundreds of additional filings by his attorneys over the same period.”

A look at Pacer shows that it’s up to 63 cases, so far this year.

★

Scarsi was ready for Lopez. Not him, in particular, but those who, like Lopez, seek to exploit their disabilities through participating in a scheme to coerce small businesses into paying nuisance settlements. (I do know, first-hand, about similar efforts at coercion; Cal/OSHA is seeking to squeeze money out of the Metropolitan News Company based on trumped up allegations.)

The action against Greenfield was filed on July 21 and assigned to Scarsi the next day. On that day, the plaintiff was ordered, with 14 days, “to show cause in writing why the Court should exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim and any other state law claim asserted in the Complaint.”

Kim responded on Aug. 5, saying:

“Here, if this Court were to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state claim, it would result in the plaintiff pursuing the Unruh claim in state court while, simultaneously, prosecuting the ADA claim in federal court. Given that the plaintiffs state claim is predicated upon a finding that the ADA has been violated, this means that almost identical cases would be prosecuted in two different forums.”

Oh? And what would Lopez gain by continuing the ADA action in District Court if he were pursuing remedies in the Superior Court? Any relief a District Court could afford would be available in state court.

★

On Friday, Scarsi not only hacked Lopez’s Unruh claim from the complaint but also ordered the plaintiff “to show cause why the ADA claim should not be dismissed without prejudice for lack of standing and why the Court should not decline jurisdiction over the remaining claims.” He pointed out:

“Nothing in the record establishes the proximity of Plaintiff’s residence to the business, the regularity of Plaintiff’s visits to that area, or an explanation of why Plaintiff prefers this accommodation over other comparable locations….Plaintiff has not pleaded facts substantiating an intent to return to Defendant’s business establishment, let alone the area in its vicinity.”

Scarsi made the same order, to the same plaintiff, for the same reason on April 23 in a case in which Lopez was suing the owner of Alaska Seafood in the area dividing East Hollywood on the north and Koreatown to the south, as well as on April 30 in an action against the owner of Peter Pan Market in Mid-City. The latter action was voluntarily dismissed six days after the judge issued an OSC based on standing.

★

On May 6, District Court Judge Hernán D. Vera of the Central District of California dismissed California-law claims brought by So. Cal, on behalf of Lopez, against Solo Barber Club LLC. It’s alleged that Lopez went to a barbershop on Sunset Boulevard. It’s located near Dodger Stadium. Allegedly, it didn’t have a handicapped parking space.

That poor fellow, Lopez. He just can’t seem to be able to get a haircut in Los Angeles, though he’s apparently traveled far and wide looking for a ADA-compliant tonsorial parlor. The one on Sunset, which he says he visited last December, is five-and-a-half miles from the beauty salon on Western in West Adams to which he claims he went in April.

Oh, yeah, why is it he didn’t go into the West Adams shop right next to the one to which he claimed to have lacked access? I posed the question to Kim by email. No response.

Well, maybe a single, shallow step from the sidewalk to the front door at the barbershop on Western, was too daunting. However, Washington Boulevard is a short distance to the north, and Jefferson is five blocks to the south. Lopez has transportation by a motor vehicle; he has sued based on lack of handicapped parking spaces. If his objective was actually to get his hair clipped, could he not have found a suitable, accessible establishment among the eight barbershops nearby on Washington, the two in close proximity on Jefferson, or the one on a side street north of Washington, a bit to the east, on Vermont?

★

What next? A person with diabetes suing a candy shop based on lack of access?

Activities such as those of So. Cal—and, most egregiously, and notoriously, the San Diego firm of Potter and Handy’s “Center for Disability Access”—are out of hand.

Efforts to bring these outfits in check are to be commended. The one positive thing I can think of that George Gascón did as district attorney was attempting to put an end to Potter and Handy’s mischief through an action—unfortunately an ill-fated one—under the Unfair Competition Law. In the meantime, small businesses continue to be victimized by the likes of Kim.

I wonder if Lopez ever got his haircut.