Prado v. City of Berkeley

Background

Seven unhoused disabled individuals and Where Do We Go Berkeley, a nonprofit organization, brought a proposed class action against the City of Berkeley. The plaintiffs alleged that the City’s abatements and evictions destroyed tents, vehicles, personal belongings, medications, and mobility devices; provided inadequate or confusing notice; and failed to offer disability accommodations in its outreach, parking enforcement, and shelter programs.

The plaintiffs asserted claims under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Housing Act, the Eighth Amendment under Martin v. City of Boise, the Fourteenth Amendment’s state-created-danger theory, and state law. The City challenged Where Do We Go Berkeley’s standing and moved to dismiss the causes of action. It also asked the court to strike allegations concerning events after September 4, 2023.

Rulings on pleading and standing

The court denied the request to strike allegations about events after September 4, 2023. Although the plaintiffs had not formally moved to supplement the complaint, the City had not shown prejudice, so the court allowed those allegations to remain.

The court denied dismissal based on organizational standing. It concluded that Where Do We Go Berkeley plausibly alleged that the City’s actions frustrated its mission and caused it to divert resources to replace supplies, locate displaced residents, and advocate for people affected by the City’s actions.

The court denied dismissal of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims concerning the seizure and destruction of personal property and vehicles. The plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the City destroyed property without a warrant, without showing that the property was abandoned or posed an immediate health or safety threat, and without giving owners a meaningful opportunity to reclaim it. The court also concluded that the allegations plausibly showed that vehicle seizures and destruction were not justified by the Fourth Amendment’s community-caretaking exception and that the City failed to provide adequate notice before taking or permanently destroying the vehicles.

Americans with Disabilities Act claims

The court granted dismissal, with leave to amend, of the claim that the City failed to assist plaintiffs in moving their personal property during evictions and abatements. The plaintiffs had not adequately alleged that they requested this assistance as a disability accommodation and that the City denied the request.

The court denied dismissal of Lucien Jeffords’s request for a reasonable accommodation to the City’s 72-hour parking ordinance. The complaint plausibly alleged that his physical disabilities made it exceedingly difficult to move his vehicle every 72 hours. The court granted dismissal, with leave to amend, of the comparable parking-accommodation claims by Amber Whitson, Yesica Prado, and Monique Williams because they had not alleged that their disabilities prevented them from moving their recreational vehicles every 72 hours.

The court denied dismissal of the claim seeking mental-health professionals as an accommodation to the City’s existing homeless-outreach program. The court concluded that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that adding mental-health workers could be a reasonable modification to an existing program rather than a demand that the City create an entirely new program.

The court granted dismissal of the plaintiffs’ request for a reasonable accommodation to the shelter programs’ policies, including the no-visitor policy. The court concluded that most plaintiffs had not sufficiently connected their specific disabilities to the need for visitors in their rooms. Although Rufus Lee White Jr. alleged such a connection, the court concluded that he lacked standing to pursue that claim because he was not currently in shelter and had not encountered the no-visitor policy. The court did not dismiss other ADA theories that the City had not addressed in its motion, including claims involving door locks, a second emotional-support animal, help understanding shelter rules, additional time to comply with notices, and accessible shelter accommodations.

Fair Housing Act and constitutional claims

The court denied dismissal of the Fair Housing Act reasonable-accommodation claim. It applied the reasonable-accommodation standard rather than the burden-shifting framework used for disparate-treatment claims and concluded that the plaintiffs had stated some plausible accommodation claims concerning shelter rules, policies, and services.

The Eighth Amendment claim under Martin v. City of Boise had already been dismissed by stipulated agreement after the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.

The court denied dismissal of the Fourteenth Amendment state-created-danger claim. A state-created-danger claim alleges that government action affirmatively made a person’s situation more dangerous while officials acted with deliberate indifference to a known or obvious danger. The court concluded that Rufus Lee White Jr., Erin Spencer, and Jermaine Lee “Cat” White plausibly alleged that the City’s destruction of shelters and survival gear left them without safe protection from the elements or adequate alternatives. The court did not identify Amber Whitson as a plaintiff who adequately pleaded this claim in its specific conclusion.

The court denied dismissal of the state-law claims because the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged federal claims, preserving supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims at this stage.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the City’s motion to dismiss. The plaintiffs were given 30 days from the date of the order to file an amended complaint. A further case-management conference was set for August 27, 2024.