Curran v. Oakland

Background

Michael Curran and Nicole Brown-Booker, whom the opinion identifies as persons with mobility disabilities, alleged that the City of Oakland violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and California Government Code section 11135. They alleged that pedestrian facilities newly constructed or altered since those laws took effect were not fully and equally accessible, and that Oakland failed to maintain the accessibility of those facilities.

The plaintiffs and their counsel began investigating the claims in 2017, exchanged information with Oakland, and engaged in settlement negotiations and seven mediation sessions. They reached a final agreement in a Consent Decree on July 21, 2025. The court had preliminarily approved the settlement and provisionally certified the settlement class on September 5, 2025.

Settlement class and final approval

The court made final the certification of a class consisting of people with mobility disabilities who, before or during the Consent Decree’s term, were denied full and equal access to Oakland’s pedestrian right of way because of missing, damaged, unrepaired, or inaccessible curb ramps or pedestrian walkways. The court confirmed Curran and Brown-Booker as class representatives and confirmed four organizations as class counsel.

The court found that notice was reasonable and provided class members an opportunity to object or comment at the fairness hearing. No class member objected. The court found the settlement fair, reasonable, adequate, and in the best interests of the class, and found that it resulted from good-faith, prolonged, serious, and non-collusive negotiations.

The Consent Decree requires Oakland to install or remediate accessible curb ramps at 12,738 locations by the end of fiscal year 2050 and to remediate approximately 78,531 damaged sidewalk locations, affecting approximately 2,075,000 square feet of sidewalks. It also requires annual minimum commitments, make-up work if an annual commitment is missed, compliance for new construction and alterations, maintenance of accessible facilities, prioritization of high-priority barriers, an access-request system, and annual reporting and monitoring. The opinion states that the work is estimated to cost approximately $157.4 million to $325.7 million over the 25-year term, excluding additional barriers not identified in the cited survey.

Class members release injunctive, declaratory, and other non-money claims related to the accessibility of Oakland’s curb ramps and pedestrian walkways during the Consent Decree’s term. Unnamed class members do not release claims for monetary damages, personal injuries, or property damage. Curran and Brown-Booker separately release their monetary claims related to their personal encounters with noncompliant facilities in exchange for $35,000 each. The court reserved exclusive and continuing jurisdiction to supervise, enforce, interpret, and implement the Consent Decree during its term.

Attorneys’ fees and costs

The court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for $2,008,000 in attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses. The court determined that the plaintiffs were prevailing parties because they obtained a judicially enforceable Consent Decree providing relief, and it applied the lodestar method, which generally calculates fees by multiplying reasonable hours by reasonable hourly rates.

Class counsel reported 2,716.50 hours through September 30, 2025, after reducing the lodestar by 15 percent for billing judgment. The court found the requested hourly rates and hours reasonable, and found that the requested amount was reasonable because the lodestar exceeded $2,008,000. The court also found the requested costs, including filing, mediation, expert, document-storage, research, telephone, copying, and printing costs, reasonable and recoverable.

Class representative payments and disposition

The court granted the motion for class representative payments of $35,000 to each of Curran and Brown-Booker. It considered their time and effort, the benefits to the class, the personal difficulties and risks they described, the length of the matter, and their agreement to a broad release of monetary claims. The court noted that the payments were on the higher end of typical service awards in the district but found them appropriate in light of the personal injuries and damages described in the record and the broad release.

The parties’ joint motion for final approval of the class action settlement was GRANTED. The plaintiffs’ motion for reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of $2,008,000 was GRANTED. The plaintiffs’ motion for class representative payments of $35,000 to each named plaintiff was GRANTED. The order states that the Consent Decree, order, and judgment are not admissions of liability or fault by Oakland and are not findings that the claims or any alleged legal violation are valid.