Abacuc Heras v. MJ's Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
Filing
39
MINUTE (IN CHAMBERS) ORDER DECLINING Supplemental Jurisdiction and DISMISSING State-Law Claim Without Prejudice by Judge Josephine L. Staton: The Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff's Unruh Act claim, and the claim is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE to filing in state court. (See document for further information). (jp)
Case 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES Document 39 Filed 07/18/21 Page 1 of 5 Page ID #:130
____________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
CIVIL MINUTES – GENERAL
Case No. 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES
Title: Abacuc Heras v. MJ’s Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
Date: July 18, 2021
Present: HONORABLE JOSEPHINE L. STATON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Melissa Kunig
Deputy Clerk
ATTORNEYS PRESENT FOR PLAINTIFF:
Not Present
N/A
Court Reporter
ATTORNEYS PRESENT FOR DEFENDANT:
Not Present
PROCEEDINGS: (IN CHAMBERS) ORDER DECLINING SUPPLEMENTAL
JURISDICTION AND DISMISSING STATE-LAW CLAIM
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
The Complaint filed in this action asserts a claim for injunctive relief arising out of
an alleged violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and a claim
for damages pursuant to California’s Unruh Act. On June 28, 2021, the Court ordered
Plaintiff to show cause why the Court should not decline to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s Unruh Act claim. (OSC, Doc. 34.) Plaintiff timely
responded. (Response, Doc. 35.) Having considered Plaintiff’s response, the Court finds
exercise of supplemental jurisdiction is not warranted under the circumstances.
Accordingly, Plaintiff’s Unruh Act claim is DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE to
filing in state court.
I.
Legal Standard
In an action over which a district court possesses original jurisdiction, that court
“shall have supplemental jurisdiction over all other claims that are so related to claims in
the action within such original jurisdiction that they form part of the same case or
controversy under Article III of the United States Constitution.” 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a).
Even if supplemental jurisdiction exists, district courts have discretion to decline to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction:
The district courts may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a
claim under subsection (a) if—
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Case 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES Document 39 Filed 07/18/21 Page 2 of 5 Page ID #:131
____________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
CIVIL MINUTES – GENERAL
Case No. 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES
Title: Abacuc Heras v. MJ’s Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
Date: July 18, 2021
(1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of State law,
(2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which
the district court has original jurisdiction,
(3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original
jurisdiction, or
(4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for
declining jurisdiction.
28 U.S.C. § 1367(c). The Supreme Court has described 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c) as a
“codification” of the principles of “‘economy, convenience, fairness, and comity’” that
underlie the Supreme Court’s earlier jurisprudence concerning pendent jurisdiction. City
of Chicago v. Int’l Coll. of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 172-73 (1997) (quoting CarnegieMellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 357 (1988)); see also United Mine Workers v.
Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966) (“It has consistently been recognized that pendent
jurisdiction is a doctrine of discretion, not of plaintiff’s right. Its justification lies in
considerations of judicial economy, convenience and fairness to litigants; if these are not
present a federal court should hesitate to exercise jurisdiction over state claims, even
though bound to apply state law to them. Needless decisions of state law should be
avoided both as a matter of comity and to promote justice between the parties, by
procuring for them a surer-footed reading of applicable law.”).
District courts may decline to exercise jurisdiction over supplemental state law
claims “[d]epending on a host of factors” including “the circumstances of the particular
case, the nature of the state law claims, the character of the governing state law, and the
relationship between the state and federal claims.” City of Chicago, 522 U.S. at 173.
The supplemental jurisdiction statute “reflects the understanding that, when deciding
whether to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, ‘a federal court should consider and weigh
in each case, and at every stage of the litigation, the values of judicial economy,
convenience, fairness, and comity.’” Id. (quoting Cohill, 484 U.S. at 350).
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Case 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES Document 39 Filed 07/18/21 Page 3 of 5 Page ID #:132
____________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
CIVIL MINUTES – GENERAL
Case No. 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES
Title: Abacuc Heras v. MJ’s Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
Date: July 18, 2021
The Ninth Circuit does not require an “explanation for a district court’s reasons
[for declining supplemental jurisdiction] when the district court acts under” 28 U.S.C. §§
1367(c)(1)-(3), San Pedro Hotel Co. v. City of Los Angeles, 159 F.3d 470, 478 (9th Cir.
1998), but does require a district court to “articulate why the circumstances of the case
are exceptional in addition to inquiring whether the balance of the Gibbs values provide
compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction in such circumstances.” Executive Software
N. Am. Inc. v. U.S. Dist. Court for the Cent. Dist. of Cal., 24 F.3d 1545, 1558 (9th Cir.
1994). According to the Ninth Circuit, this “inquiry is not particularly burdensome.” Id.
When declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(4), “the
court must identify the predicate that triggers the applicability of the category (the
exceptional circumstances), and then determine whether, in its judgment, the underlying
Gibbs values are best served by declining jurisdiction in the particular case (the
compelling reasons).” Id.
II.
Discussion
As the Court indicated in its prior Order, “[b]y enacting restrictions on the filing of
construction-related accessibility claims, California has expressed a desire to limit the
financial burdens California’s businesses may face for claims for statutory damages
under the Unruh Act. Plaintiffs who file these actions in federal court evade these limits
and pursue state law damages in a manner inconsistent with the state law’s
requirements.” (OSC at 2.) It is not, under the Gibbs factors, “fair” to defendants that
plaintiffs may pursue construction-related accessibility claims in this Court while evading
the limitations California state law has imposed on such claims. In addition, to allow
federal courts to become an escape hatch allowing plaintiffs to pursue such claims is also
an affront to the comity between federal and state courts. Garibay v. Rodriguez, No.
2:18-CV-09187-PA-AFM, 2019 WL 5204294, at *5 (C.D. Cal. August 27, 2019).
Moreover, such evasion places tremendous strain on the federal courts. The
number of construction-related accessibility claims filed in the Central District has
skyrocketed both numerically and as a percentage of total civil filings since California
began its efforts to curtail the filing of such actions. According to statistics compiled by
the Clerk’s Office, in 2013, the first year in which California’s initial limitations on such
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____________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
CIVIL MINUTES – GENERAL
Case No. 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES
Title: Abacuc Heras v. MJ’s Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
Date: July 18, 2021
cases were in effect, there were 419 ADA cases filed in the Central District, which
constituted 3% of the civil actions filed. Filings of such cases increased from 928 (7% of
civil cases) in 2014, the year before the imposition of the additional $1,000 filing fee and
additional pleading requirements for high-frequency litigants, to 1,386 (10% of civil
cases) in 2016, the first full year of those requirements. The number and percentage of
such cases filed in the Central District has increased in each year since California acted to
limit the filings by high-frequency litigants, reaching 1,670 (12% of civil cases) in 2017,
1,670 (18% of civil cases) in 2018, and 1,868 cases (24% of civil cases) in the first six
months of 2019. The coincidence of astronomical growth in the filing of these cases in
federal court with California’s limitations on construction-related accessibility claims
suggests that it is precisely because the federal courts have not adopted California’s
limitations on such claims that federal courts have become the preferred forum for them,
and that coincidence also belies Plaintiff’s alternative rationales for filing Unruh Act
claims in federal court. See Garibay, 2019 WL 5204294, at *4 (“Indeed, those reasons, if
true at all, do not explain why nearly 9 times more construction-related accessibility
actions are being filed in the Central District in 2019 than were filed in 2013.”).
Accordingly, the Court concludes that California’s enactment of laws restricting
construction-related accessibility claims, combined with the burden the ever-increasing
number of such cases poses to the federal courts, presents “exceptional circumstances”
and “compelling reasons” that justify the Court’s discretion to decline to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s Unruh Act claim in this action under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1367(c)(4). See Shutza v. Cuddeback, 262 F. Supp. 3d 1025, 1031 (S.D. Cal. 2017)
(relying on Hanna v. Plummer, 380 U.S. 460, 467-68 (1965), for the proposition that
federal courts are permitted to decline supplemental jurisdiction to discourage improper
forum-shopping, such as ADA plaintiffs “use [of] federal court as an end-around to
California’s pleading requirements”). Moreover, the Court sees no prejudice in requiring
Plaintiff’s state-law claim be heard in state Court. See Garibay, 2019 WL 5204294, at *6
(“[D]eclin[ing] supplemental jurisdiction does not deprive plaintiff of any remedies. Nor
does it allow an ADA claim for injunctive relief to go unaddressed.”). As stated in
Garibay, “if Plaintiff legitimately seeks to litigate this action in a single forum, Plaintiff
may dismiss this action and refile it in state court in accordance with the requirements
California has imposed on such actions.” Id.
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____________________________________________________________________________
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
CIVIL MINUTES – GENERAL
Case No. 8:21-cv-00208-JLS-KES
Title: Abacuc Heras v. MJ’s Pinoy Fiesta Inc., et al
III.
Date: July 18, 2021
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, the Court declines to exercise supplemental jurisdiction
over Plaintiff’s Unruh Act claim in this action, and the claim is DISMISSED WITHOUT
PREJUDICE to filing in state court.
Initials of Deputy Clerk: mku
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