Whitaker v. Chau
- Alex Tse
- 3:21-cv-07436
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 1
In Whitaker v. Chau, Judge Tse struck a motion to dismiss improperly combined with the defendant’s answer, allowing renewal under the rules.
The order directly affects Pamela Chau’s combined answer-and-motion filing and permits her to renew the motion through a properly noticed filing. It does not resolve the underlying arguments about mootness or supplemental jurisdiction.
What happened
Whitaker v. Chau concerns how the defendant filed her response to the complaint. Pamela Chau included a motion to dismiss for mootness and to deny supplemental jurisdiction within her answer.
The court said the federal rules treat answers as pleadings and motions as separate filings. Because combining them made the docket difficult to follow and did not comply with the rules, the court struck the motion from the answer.
The court did not decide the mootness or supplemental-jurisdiction arguments. It said Chau could renew them by properly noticing a motion under the federal and local rules, and Judge Alex G. Tse directed her to address a relevant Ninth Circuit decision if she renewed the argument about the Unruh Act claim.
The detailed version
- Whitaker v. Chau · No. 3:21-cv-07436
- Alex Tse
- Jan. 4, 2022
Background
In her answer to Brian Whitaker’s complaint, Pamela Chau included a “motion to dismiss for mootness and motion to deny supplemental jurisdiction.” The filing concerned, among other things, whether the court should decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Whitaker’s Unruh Act claim.
Court’s analysis
The court explained that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure distinguish between motions and other papers and pleadings. An answer to a complaint is a pleading. Combining the answer and motion in one filing made the docket difficult to follow and did not comply with the federal rules.
Ruling
The court struck the motion from Chau’s answer. It did not rule on whether the case was moot or whether supplemental jurisdiction should be denied. The court stated that Chau could renew those arguments by properly noticing a motion that complies with the federal and local rules. If she renewed the request that the court decline supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim, the court said she should address Arroyo v. Rosas, 19 F.4th 1202 (9th Cir. 2021), which it described as relevant to that argument. Judge Alex G. Tse entered the order on January 4, 2022.
Read the full 1-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.