DeZure v. The American Board of Pediatrics, Inc.
- Nathanael Cousins
- 5:20-cv-09123
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In DeZure v. The American Board, Judge Cousins granted dismissal of disability-discrimination claims but allowed DeZure to amend.
Dr. Chandani DeZure’s ADA and Unruh Act claims were dismissed at the pleading stage, but she received leave to amend; The American Board of Pediatrics, Inc. obtained dismissal of the second amended complaint.
What happened
DeZure v. The American Board of Pediatrics, Inc. concerns Dr. Chandani DeZure’s claim that the American Board of Pediatrics refused to let her take its certification examination because she did not meet an hours requirement, which she attributed to pregnancy. The court considered her disability-discrimination claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act.
The court ruled that DeZure had not adequately pleaded that pregnancy made her disabled under the federal law, had not alleged that the Board knew about her son’s disability for an association-based claim, and had not adequately alleged intentional discrimination under the state law. The court also ruled that the Board qualified as a business establishment under the Unruh Act.
The court granted the Board’s motion to dismiss the second amended complaint and granted DeZure leave to amend. She could not add new parties or claims without permission, and the court stated that it would dismiss the second amended complaint with prejudice if she did not amend or notify the court by November 22, 2021. Judge Nathanael M. Cousins issued the order.
The detailed version
- DeZure v. The American Board of Pediatrics, Inc. · No. 5:20-cv-09123
- Nathanael Cousins
- Nov. 1, 2021
Background
Dr. Chandani DeZure alleged that The American Board of Pediatrics, Inc. refused to allow her to sit for its board-certification examination because she failed to meet the Board’s hours prerequisite. She alleged that pregnancy prevented her from meeting that requirement. After the court dismissed her first amended complaint with leave to amend, DeZure filed a second amended complaint asserting disparate-impact and disparate-treatment claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. She dropped her retaliation claims in her opposition to the motion.
Legal standard
The Board moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. The court accepted well-pleaded factual allegations as true for purposes of the motion but did not accept conclusory allegations or unreasonable inferences.
ADA claims
The court granted dismissal of DeZure’s ADA disparate-impact claim. For her individual discrimination theory, the court held that the complaint did not adequately allege that she had a disability under the ADA. The complaint relied on pregnancy itself and did not identify a separate pregnancy-related impairment. The court stated that pregnancy itself is not a disability under the ADA.
For DeZure’s association-based theory, the court held that she did not allege that the Board knew about her son’s disability when the alleged discrimination occurred. The court therefore concluded that the ADA claim was inadequately pleaded on both theories.
Unruh Act claims
The court rejected the Board’s argument that it was not a “business establishment” under the Unruh Act. The court found that the complaint adequately alleged that the Board served a public purpose, performed business functions, and provided a public resource through the third-party validation associated with board certification.
The court nevertheless dismissed DeZure’s Unruh Act disparate-impact and disparate-treatment claims. To the extent those claims were based on the ADA, they failed for the same reason as the ADA claim: the complaint did not adequately allege that DeZure was disabled under the ADA. If the claims were not based on the ADA, the court required an allegation of intentional discrimination. The court found that DeZure’s allegations of wrongful intent were conclusory and that she did not allege that the Board knew she was pregnant when it denied her application.
Disposition
The court granted the Board’s motion to dismiss the second amended complaint and granted DeZure leave to amend. DeZure could not add new parties or claims without further court permission. The court required her to file a third amended complaint or notify the court that she did not wish to amend by November 22, 2021. The order stated that if she did not act by that date, the court would dismiss the second amended complaint with prejudice.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.