Whitaker v. TPD Tobacco LLC
- Joseph Spero
- 3:22-cv-00064
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
Whitaker v. TPD Tobacco LLC: Judge Spero dismissed Whitaker’s state civil-rights claim without prejudice while leaving his disability claim for further proceedings.
Brian Whitaker’s Unruh Civil Rights Act claim was dismissed without prejudice; his ADA claim and the defendant’s pending motion to dismiss remained unresolved.
What happened
In Whitaker v. TPD Tobacco LLC, Brian Whitaker brought a claim under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The court had ordered Whitaker to explain why it should keep hearing the state-law claim. It found that his response gave no reason to reach a different result from an earlier related case and that exceptional circumstances supported declining to hear the claim.
Judge Spero dismissed the Unruh Act claim without prejudice, allowing Whitaker to pursue it in state court. The court left the disability claim and the defendant’s pending motion to dismiss unresolved and required the parties to address how they would proceed.
The detailed version
- Whitaker v. TPD Tobacco LLC · No. 3:22-cv-00064
- Joseph Spero
- Mar. 14, 2022
Background
Brian Whitaker asserted a claim under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The court previously ordered Whitaker to show why it should exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the court’s authority to hear a related state-law claim alongside a federal claim. The court identified an earlier related proceeding and the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Arroyo v. Rosas as reasons to question whether it should hear the Unruh Act claim.
Whitaker’s response to that order was copied verbatim from an unsuccessful filing in the earlier related proceeding and gave the court no reason to reach a different conclusion. The court relied on the factors described in United Mine Workers v. Gibbs and on 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c), which allows a federal court to decline supplemental jurisdiction in exceptional circumstances.
Ruling
The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction and dismissed Whitaker’s Unruh Act claim without prejudice to pursuing it in state court. This order did not dismiss the ADA claim. The court required the parties to meet and confer and required Whitaker to file a status report stating that he intended to proceed on the ADA claim, a stipulation to dismiss that claim, or a motion to dismiss it. The court also left for later decision questions concerning the defendant’s pending motion to dismiss, including whether jurisdictional discovery or an evidentiary hearing might be needed.
Judge Joseph C. Spero entered the order on March 14, 2022.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.