Dicks v. Bengals & Bandits, LLC
- Valerie Caproni
- 1:22-cv-07597
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Dicks v. Bengals & Bandits, Judge Caproni ordered Dicks to amend her complaint or explain why the case should not be dismissed for lack of standing.
Valerie Dicks and Bengals & Bandits, LLC; the order also concerns Dicks’s proposed class action because the court questioned whether the complaint adequately alleged standing.
What happened
In Dicks v. Bengals & Bandits, LLC, Valerie Dicks sued Bengals & Bandits, LLC, alleging that its website was inaccessible to visually impaired people in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and two New York human-rights laws. The defendant filed an answer.
The court said the complaint likely did not adequately show that Dicks had standing—the legal requirement that a plaintiff demonstrate a concrete injury that the defendant caused and that a court can remedy. For an accessibility claim seeking an order requiring changes, the plaintiff must plausibly allege a real and immediate threat of future injury, including a reasonable likelihood of returning to the business. The court found the complaint’s allegations were at least as conclusory as allegations the appeals court had previously rejected.
Judge Valerie Caproni did not dismiss the case in this order. She ordered Dicks, by December 5, 2022, either to ask for permission to file an amended complaint that adequately alleges standing or to explain why the case should not be dismissed for lack of standing.
The detailed version
- Dicks v. Bengals & Bandits, LLC · No. 1:22-cv-07597
- Valerie Caproni
- Nov. 28, 2022
Background
Valerie Dicks brought this proposed class action against Bengals & Bandits, LLC. She alleged that the defendant’s failure to make its website accessible to visually impaired people violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. Bengals & Bandits filed an answer on November 1, 2022.
Standing issue
The court addressed constitutional standing, which requires a plaintiff to allege a concrete and particular injury that is actual or imminent, fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, and likely to be remedied by a favorable court decision. The court explained that a plaintiff seeking injunctive relief under the Americans with Disabilities Act must allege past injury, a reasonable inference that the discriminatory treatment will continue, and a reasonable basis to infer that the plaintiff intends to return to the location. The complaint must plausibly allege a real and immediate threat of future injury.
The court stated that the Second Circuit had rejected conclusory, boilerplate allegations of injury in a prior case involving accessibility for visually impaired plaintiffs. It concluded that the allegations in Dicks’s complaint likely failed to adequately allege standing because they were at least as conclusory as the allegations rejected in that prior decision.
Order
The court ordered Dicks, no later than December 5, 2022, to make a motion to file an amended complaint that adequately alleges standing or to show cause—explain why—the case should not be dismissed for lack of standing. The order did not itself dismiss the case.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.