Gomez v. Braby
- Phyllis Hamilton
- 4:22-cv-00036
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Gomez v. Braby, Judge Hamilton denied Braby’s motion for attorneys’ fees because Gomez’s novel ADA theory was not frivolous.
Defendant Elizabeth Ann Braby did not receive the attorneys’ fees she requested. Plaintiff Andres Gomez was not required to pay those fees.
What happened
Gomez v. Braby involved Andres Gomez’s claims that accessibility problems on Elizabeth Ann Braby’s real-estate website prevented him from using screen-reader software. The court had dismissed Gomez’s amended complaint for lack of jurisdiction, and Braby then sought attorneys’ fees.
Braby argued that Gomez’s lawsuit had no reasonable foundation, pointing to his alleged lack of a connection to a physical location or service, his stated Florida residency and monthly disability benefits, and statements from another case. Gomez argued that he was presenting a new theory about website accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton denied Braby’s motion. She found that Braby did not follow local meet-and-confer requirements and did not separately move for sanctions under Rule 11. Judge Hamilton also denied the motion on the merits, ruling that although Gomez’s theory was unsuccessful and stretched existing law, it was not wholly without foundation or frivolous.
The detailed version
- Gomez v. Braby · No. 4:22-cv-00036
- Phyllis Hamilton
- Oct. 31, 2022
Background
Andres Gomez alleged that he is legally blind and uses screen-reader software to access internet content. He alleged that he was a prospective customer of Elizabeth Ann Braby’s real-estate services and that, in March and July 2021, he tried to use Braby’s website to obtain information about houses for sale in Northern California. According to Gomez, accessibility design flaws prevented him from navigating the website with his screen reader and denied him full and equal access.
Gomez filed the original complaint on January 5,
- After the parties reported that they had reached a settlement, the court conditionally dismissed the case. The court later reopened it after the settlement was not finalized. Gomez filed a first amended complaint on June 21,
- Following the retention of new counsel, Braby moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which concerns subject-matter jurisdiction. The court granted that motion for lack of jurisdiction on August 23,
- Braby then moved for attorneys’ fees because she had prevailed on the dismissal motion.
Procedural Defects
The court first addressed Gomez’s argument that Braby had not complied with Civil Local Rule 54-5. That rule requires a party seeking attorneys’ fees to meet and confer with the opposing party before filing the motion. It also requires a declaration describing the conference or explaining why no conference occurred and certifying that counsel made a good-faith effort to arrange one.
The court found that no meet-and-confer occurred and that Braby did not submit the required declaration. The court rejected the suggestion that earlier correspondence warning of sanctions satisfied the rule. It therefore denied the motion based on this procedural defect.
Braby also argued that Gomez’s counsel should face sanctions under Rule 11 because counsel allegedly knew that Gomez was not a potential real-estate customer when the amended complaint was filed. The court noted that Braby had not filed the separate sanctions motion required by Civil Local Rule 7-8(a). To the extent the fee motion sought fees as Rule 11 sanctions, the court found that request did not comply with the local rules.
Legal Standard
The Americans with Disabilities Act permits a court to award a prevailing party reasonable attorneys’ fees, litigation expenses, and costs. Under the applicable standard, a prevailing defendant may receive fees only if the plaintiff’s action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation. A claim is generally frivolous when the result was obvious or the arguments were wholly without merit. The court may not award fees merely because the plaintiff ultimately lost.
The court recognized that Braby was the prevailing party because the case had been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. But prevailing status alone did not establish entitlement to fees.
Merits Analysis
Braby argued that Gomez had no reasonable foundation for bringing the lawsuit for three reasons: he had not alleged a sufficient connection between the inaccessible website and access to a physical location or Braby’s services; his Florida residency and $900 monthly Social Security disability benefits made a potential purchase of Northern California real estate implausible; and Gomez had allegedly admitted in another case that he was a “window shopper” and a “dreamer,” rather than a prospective customer.
Gomez responded that the case sought to develop the law concerning equal access to websites and that the website-accessibility theory had not been clearly rejected by binding authority. He also pointed to guidance from the Department of Justice and authority questioning whether the required connection between an inaccessible website and a physical location had been established.
The court agreed with Gomez that the theory was not doomed to fail when the case was filed. Although the theory stretched the boundaries of an ADA accessibility case and the court disagreed with Gomez’s approach, the court concluded that the theory was not wholly without foundation and did not rise to the level of frivolousness.
Disposition
The court denied Braby’s motion for attorneys’ fees based on the procedural defect and also denied it on the merits. The final order states that the motion for attorneys’ fees is denied.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.