Sawyer III v. Zenrose, LLC

Background

Oziel Sawyer III, who has a spine injury and uses a wheelchair, alleged that he planned to stay at Beach House-Half Moon Bay but decided not to book a room after reviewing Pacific Beach House, LLC’s reservation website. According to the amended complaint, the website did not provide enough detail about accessible features in the rooms or about areas such as the lobby, registration desk, pool, entrance, and parking. The website instead instructed guests to contact Pacific to determine whether a room might meet their needs.

The property is a complex of individually owned condominiums, some of which Sawyer alleged were available for rent to the general public. Pacific allegedly owns and operates the website that manages condominium rentals. Sawyer asserted an Americans with Disabilities Act claim based on the website’s reservation policies and procedures and a claim under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act based on the alleged ADA violations.

Pacific’s Motion

Pacific moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which challenges the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, and Rule 12(b)(6), which challenges whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. Pacific argued that Sawyer’s claims were moot because Pacific could not control the individual condominium units or determine which features they had. Pacific also argued that the condominium complex was not a place of public accommodation under Title III of the ADA and that the ADA did not apply to a website connected to property that was not itself covered.

Pacific separately asked the court to take judicial notice of an alleged screenshot of its website. The court denied that request because the screenshot was undated, defense counsel did not authenticate it through a declaration explaining how and when it was obtained, and Pacific did not explain how it met the requirements for judicial notice.

Mootness Ruling

The court denied Pacific’s Rule 12(b)(1) motion based on mootness. Mootness generally means that a live dispute no longer exists or that effective relief is no longer available. The court explained that Pacific did not argue that the website had changed or that later events had eliminated the effects of the alleged ADA violation. Instead, Pacific’s argument concerned whether it could be held responsible for information on a website it owned and operated. The court treated that as an issue going to the claims’ merits, not as a basis for finding that the court lacked jurisdiction because the case was moot.

ADA Claim

Title III of the ADA prohibits disability discrimination by a private entity that owns, leases, or operates a place of public accommodation. The statute includes an inn, hotel, motel, or other place of lodging among public accommodations. The relevant federal regulation, known here as the “Reservations Rule,” requires covered lodging facilities to allow people with disabilities to make reservations in the same manner as other guests and to identify and describe accessible features in enough detail for individuals to assess independently whether a room meets their needs.

The court recognized that apartments and condominiums generally are not public accommodations under the ADA, but it also explained that portions of a residential building may be covered when they are made available to the general public for rental or use. Whether this property qualified as a covered place of lodging was fact-specific. The allegations that Beach House-Half Moon Bay was a place of lodging and that units were available for rent to the general public supported a reasonable inference at the pleading stage that the property could be subject to the ADA.

The court therefore denied Pacific’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion on this ground. It did not decide after a factual trial or summary-judgment record whether the property ultimately qualifies as a public accommodation or whether Pacific violated the ADA.

Disposition

The court denied Pacific’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint. It also ordered the parties to conduct a joint site inspection within 45 days of the order and to comply with the applicable scheduling-order deadlines.