Prado v. City of Berkeley

Background

The plaintiffs are several unhoused residents and the organization Where Do We Go Berkeley (WDWG). They allege that the City of Berkeley’s abatements, evictions, treatment of disabled unhoused people, shelter policies, and 72-hour parking enforcement violated the Fourth Amendment, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Housing Amendments Act, due process protections, and related California law.

The City moved to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint. The court had previously allowed some claims from the First Amended Complaint to proceed and gave the plaintiffs permission to amend other claims.

Judicial Notice

The court granted the plaintiffs’ request for judicial notice of three documents, including City webpages concerning housing and municipal policies. The court noted that such documents could be judicially noticed for their existence, but not necessarily for the truth of disputed facts.

Rulings

WDWG’s organizational standing

The court denied the City’s motion to dismiss WDWG for lack of standing. The court found that WDWG plausibly alleged that the City’s abatements and property seizures directly disrupted its day-to-day services, including tracking clients, reconnecting displaced people with services, and replacing destroyed survival supplies. The court distinguished those allegations from merely spending money on advocacy or opposition.

Lucien Jeffords and Rufus White, Jr.

The court stated that the plaintiffs conceded Lucien Jeffords’s claims were moot and dismissed Mr. Jeffords’s claims with prejudice.

As to Rufus White, Jr., the court’s discussion dismissed his reasonable-accommodation claim except to the extent it alleged that the City failed to install grab bars required by the ADA. The court rejected the theory that the ADA required the City to provide personal in-home care services. However, the order’s conclusion states more broadly that the claims of both Mr. Jeffords and Mr. White, Jr. were dismissed as moot. This creates an apparent inconsistency because the discussion separately preserves Mr. White, Jr.’s grab-bar theory.

Disability-accommodation claims

The court denied the motion to dismiss Erin Spencer’s claim concerning assistance with moving personal property during encampment abatements. The court found that the Second Amended Complaint plausibly alleged that Mr. Spencer had disabilities affecting his ability to lift and move objects, requested accommodations, and was denied assistance or additional time.

The court granted the motion regarding the 72-hour parking-rule challenge. Ms. Whitson’s claim was dismissed with leave to amend because the complaint did not allege that she requested an accommodation, informed the City of her disabilities, or gave the City another basis to know that she needed an accommodation. The court allowed the plaintiffs 30 days from the order’s date to file an amended complaint addressing her claim. Ms. Prado’s 72-hour-rule challenge was dismissed without leave to amend because the complaint did not adequately connect her disability to the requested exemption or explain why the exemption was a reasonable accommodation.

The court denied the motion as to Monique Williams’s challenge to the shelter no-visitor policy. Ms. Williams plausibly alleged that she requested permission for her daughter to visit and provide caregiving and emotional support, and that the City neither granted the request nor engaged in an interactive process to consider alternatives.

The court dismissed Ms. Prado’s no-visitor-policy challenge without leave to amend. It found that her allegations did not explain why her disabilities required in-person visits inside the shelter rather than support in other settings. The conclusion states that the motion was denied as to Ms. Williams and granted as to Ms. Prado.

California state-created-danger claim

The court considered and granted the City’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ seventh cause of action, which asserted a state-created-danger claim under Article I, section 7 of the California Constitution. The court held that no California court had recognized that cause of action and dismissed it without leave to amend.

Request for further amendment or intervention

The court denied without prejudice the plaintiffs’ request for further leave to amend or to allow unidentified putative class members to intervene. The court found that the request was not properly presented because the plaintiffs had not filed the required motions or identified the proposed amendments or specific people seeking intervention.

Overall disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the City’s motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint. The order preserved WDWG’s standing and some disability-accommodation claims, dismissed other claims and theories as described above, dismissed the state-created-danger cause of action without leave to amend, and denied the general request for further amendment or intervention.