Whitaker v. Jeong
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-02362
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Whitaker v. Jeong, Judge Rogers dismissed the complaint for lack of plausibly alleged standing, denied default proceedings as moot, and dismissed the state claim without prejudice.
Brian Whitaker’s ADA and Unruh Act claims were affected. The complaint could be amended, while the Unruh Act claim was dismissed without prejudice to refiling in state court; the motion for default judgment and related report and recommendation were denied as moot.
What happened
In Whitaker v. Jeong, Brian Whitaker brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. The court had previously questioned whether the complaint showed that he had standing to bring the federal claim and whether it should hear the state-law claim.
The court found that the complaint merely repeated the elements of standing without supporting facts. It treated Whitaker’s response to the court’s order as a concession that he had not plausibly alleged standing. The court also found exceptional circumstances supporting its decision not to hear the Unruh Act claim in federal court.
Judge Yvonne Rogers dismissed the complaint with leave to amend by November 4, 2022, dismissed the Unruh Act claim without prejudice to refiling in state court, and denied the motion for default judgment and related report and recommendation as moot.
The detailed version
- Whitaker v. Jeong · No. 4:21-cv-02362
- Yvonne Rogers
- Oct. 11, 2022
Background
Brian Whitaker sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. After the case was reassigned to Judge Yvonne Rogers, a report and recommendation favored default. The court then ordered Whitaker to explain why the case should not be dismissed for lack of Article III standing and why the court should not decline supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim.
Standing
The court had previously explained that the complaint did not provide factual support for any theory of standing under the ADA. It said that merely reciting the elements of standing was insufficient. The court found that Whitaker’s response was boilerplate and did not address the specific concerns in the order to show cause. The court treated his failure to address those concerns as a concession that he had not plausibly alleged standing beyond conclusory statements.
Supplemental jurisdiction
Supplemental jurisdiction is a federal court’s discretionary authority to hear related state-law claims in the same case as federal claims. The court concluded that exceptional circumstances justified declining supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. It relied on the Ninth Circuit’s treatment of similar claims by a “high-frequency” litigant and considered federal-state comity, convenience, fairness, and judicial economy. The court distinguished a Ninth Circuit decision in which declining supplemental jurisdiction was improper because the ADA violation had been sufficiently pleaded and default judgment had already been granted. Here, the court had found that standing was not plausibly alleged, and the report and recommendation was not a final adjudication.
Disposition
The court dismissed the complaint with leave to amend and ordered any amended pleading to be filed by November 4, 2022. It dismissed the Unruh Act claim without prejudice to refiling in state court. It denied the motion for default judgment and the corresponding report and recommendation as moot. The order also terminated Docket Numbers 23 and 29.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.