Whitaker v. Kundura, Inc.
- Edward Chen
- 3:21-cv-07973
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Whitaker v. Kundura, Judge Chen vacated a default-judgment hearing and ordered responses about ADA standing and state-law jurisdiction.
Brian Whitaker, Kundura, Inc., and Whitaker’s counsel were affected. Whitaker had to submit declarations and a response within three weeks; the default-judgment hearing and other deadlines were temporarily vacated. The order warned that failure to respond would result in dismissal of the action with prejudice.
What happened
In Brian Whitaker v. Kundura, Inc., Whitaker claimed that a Kundura store had barriers that violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. He alleged that he uses a wheelchair and intended to return to the store after it was represented as accessible.
Whitaker had a motion for default judgment pending, but the court temporarily vacated its hearing. The court ordered him to explain, with supporting details, his visit to the store and his intent to return. It also required his lawyer to describe the investigation supporting those allegations.
Judge Edward M. Chen also ordered Whitaker to explain why the federal court should hear his state-law claim. The order did not decide the claims or the default-judgment motion; it warned that failing to respond within three weeks would result in dismissal of the action with prejudice.
The detailed version
- Whitaker v. Kundura, Inc. · No. 3:21-cv-07973
- Edward Chen
- Oct. 28, 2022
Background
Brian Whitaker sued Kundura, Inc., alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. He alleged that he is a quadriplegic, uses a wheelchair for mobility, and visited a Kundura-owned store called Paolo Shoes in September 2021. According to the complaint, the store lacked wheelchair-accessible sales counters and had other barriers.
Whitaker alleged that he would return to Paolo Shoes to use its goods or services and to check whether it complied with disability-access laws once the store was represented as accessible. His motion for default judgment was pending and had been scheduled for a hearing on December 15, 2022.
Order to Show Cause
The court temporarily vacated the default-judgment hearing and issued an order to show cause, meaning an order requiring Whitaker to explain why the court should not take a specified action.
First, the court ordered Whitaker to explain why his ADA claim should not be dismissed for lack of standing. Standing is the legal requirement that a plaintiff show a sufficient personal stake in the dispute. The court required Whitaker to file a declaration supporting his claimed intent to return to Paolo Shoes, or explaining that he would return but for the alleged ADA violation.
The court also required Whitaker’s declaration to provide details supporting that he actually visited the store, including the precise date of the visit, the number of other establishments he visited that day, and where those establishments were located. The order referred to allegations by the San Francisco and Los Angeles District Attorneys concerning the conduct of the Potter Handy firm and its clients. Whitaker’s counsel was separately ordered to file a declaration describing the investigation conducted to confirm that Whitaker visited the store and intended to return.
The court stated that it might hold an evidentiary hearing to examine the truth of the jurisdictional and related allegations. If Kundura had appeared in the case, the court stated that it might allow Kundura to conduct discovery concerning jurisdiction and standing.
Second, the court ordered Whitaker to explain why it should exercise jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim. The opinion states that when a high-frequency litigant brings a California Unruh Act claim in federal court along with an ADA claim, that ordinarily may be an exceptional circumstance supporting dismissal of the Unruh Act claim. The provided opinion text ends during this discussion and does not show a final ruling on that claim.
Disposition
The court ordered Whitaker to respond within three weeks of the order’s date. It stated that failure to respond would result in dismissal of the action with prejudice. In the meantime, the court vacated all other deadlines, including the default-judgment hearing, and temporarily relieved the parties from the requirements of General Order 56.
The court did not dismiss the action in this order, did not grant or deny the default-judgment motion, and did not decide the merits of either claim.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.