Whitaker v. Infinite Loop Cupertino Hotel, LLC

Background

Brian Whitaker alleged that he is a quadriplegic who uses a wheelchair and has restrictions affecting his ability to stand, reach objects, and maneuver around fixed objects. He planned to travel to the Cupertino area and visited the hotel’s reservation website to book an accessible room. According to the First Amended Complaint, the website described the selected room as a “mobility accessible room” with either a roll-in shower or tub, but Whitaker alleged that this information was insufficient for him to determine whether the room would meet his needs.

Whitaker asserted two claims: one under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), based on the federal hotel-reservation requirement, and one under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, based on the alleged ADA violation. The hotel moved to dismiss the First Amended Complaint in its entirety and argued that its website complied with both laws.

Judicial notice

The court granted the hotel’s request to take judicial notice of two sets of screenshots from the hotel’s website because the complaint referred to the relevant webpages. The court denied as moot the request concerning the other exhibits because it did not consider those exhibits in deciding the motion.

Legal standard

The hotel’s motion was brought under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. At this stage, the court generally accepts the complaint’s factual allegations as true but considers whether those allegations plausibly show that the defendant is legally responsible. The court could also consider documents incorporated into the complaint and matters subject to judicial notice.

ADA claim

Whitaker relied on the ADA Reservations Rule, 28 C.F.R. § 36.302(e). That rule requires hotels to identify and describe accessible features in hotels and guest rooms offered through a reservation service in enough detail to reasonably allow people with disabilities to independently assess whether a particular room meets their needs.

The court relied on guidance from the Department of Justice stating that a reservation website is not intended to be an accessibility survey. The guidance says that, for a hotel built to comply with the ADA’s accessibility standards, it may be sufficient for the reservation system to identify the hotel as accessible and, for each accessible room, specify the room type, the size and number of beds, the type of accessible bathing facility, and available accessible communication features.

The court held that the hotel’s website provided more information than the guidance identified as potentially sufficient. The website listed room types, bed information, bathing facilities, and communication features. Its accessibility section also identified features such as wheelchair-height toilet seats, bathtub grab bars, lowered deadbolts, and adjustable shower wands, along with accessibility features in common areas. The website also directed people seeking additional information about physical features or services related to a specific disability to call the hotel.

The court concluded that the website satisfied the Reservations Rule as a matter of law. It rejected Whitaker’s arguments that the Department of Justice guidance should receive no weight and that other district court decisions involving similar hotel disclosures were incorrect. It also distinguished decisions in which courts denied dismissal because the websites provided less information or because the adequacy of the disclosures presented a factual dispute.

The court therefore dismissed Whitaker’s ADA claim.

Unruh Act claim

Whitaker’s Unruh Act claim was based on the alleged ADA violation. The court dismissed that claim because it dismissed the ADA claim, relying on authority stating that the Unruh Act is coextensive with the ADA for this analysis.

Leave to amend and disposition

The court granted the motion to dismiss with leave to amend. Although the court found that the current version of the hotel’s website complied with the Reservations Rule as a matter of law, it observed that the website may have changed after Whitaker viewed it. The court concluded that there might be a dispute about the website’s condition at the relevant time, making amendment potentially possible.

The court also noted that the ADA permits private plaintiffs to obtain injunctive relief and said that, if Whitaker amended his complaint, it would expect to consider whether the ADA claim was moot. The court did not decide that mootness issue.

The order states that failure to file an amended complaint by the applicable deadline, or failure to correct the identified deficiencies, would result in dismissal of the claims with prejudice. The provided opinion text does not show the specific filing deadline.