Love v. Barcelino Continental Corp.

Background

Samuel Love brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Act. He sought an order requiring accessibility and statutory damages, alleging that Barcelino Continental Corp., a clothing store, failed to provide accessible sales counters and writing surfaces.

The court previously granted Barcelino summary judgment, which is a ruling that no genuine dispute of important facts required a trial. The court concluded that the store’s lower counter surface complied with the applicable accessibility requirement because it was slightly less than 36 inches high, more than 36 inches long, and about 10 inches deep. Love argued that the higher surface was the store’s true sales counter, but the court found that he had not produced evidence contradicting Barcelino’s evidence that salespeople made sales anywhere on the floor using portable machines. The court also found no evidence that the lower surface was a covered check-writing surface or part of a covered checkout aisle. Because the Unruh Act claim rested entirely on the ADA claim and added no factual allegations, the court granted summary judgment on that claim as well. Judgment was entered for Barcelino.

Fee request

Barcelino sought $63,800 in attorneys’ fees and $1,400 in costs as the prevailing party under California law or, alternatively, under the ADA. Love opposed the request.

Barcelino first relied on California Civil Code section 55, part of the California Disabled Persons Act. The court explained that section 55 generally provides a mandatory right to fees for prevailing plaintiffs and defendants. The court did not decide whether Love’s complaint actually pleaded a claim under that statute, however, because it held that section 55’s fee provision was preempted by the ADA’s narrower fee provision to the extent the state and federal claims conflicted. The court therefore analyzed the request under the ADA.

ADA standard and ruling

The ADA allows a court to award fees to a prevailing party. Under Ninth Circuit law, a prevailing defendant may receive fees only when the plaintiff’s case was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless, or when the plaintiff continued litigating after the case clearly became so. A claim is frivolous when its outcome is obvious or its arguments are wholly without merit.

The court held that Love’s arguments did not meet that standard. Although his evidence was insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute, his theories—that the ADA accessibility rule applied to the higher surface as the true sales counter and that another rule applied to the lower surface as a check-writing surface—were not wholly without merit. The court also rejected Barcelino’s argument that Love’s and his counsel’s litigation tactics alone made the case frivolous, noting Ninth Circuit authority recognizing that litigation can advance compliance with the ADA.

Disposition

The court concluded that Love’s ADA claims were not frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless. Barcelino therefore was not eligible for attorneys’ fees or costs under the ADA. The court denied Barcelino’s motion for attorneys’ fees and costs, vacated the September 30, 2021 hearing, and stated that the order disposed of Docket No. 48.