Fontanez v. Valley Lahvosh Baking Company, Incorporated
- Vyskocil
- 1:22-cv-05537
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 8
In Fontanez v. Valley Lahvosh, Judge Vyskocil granted Valley’s dismissal motion with prejudice after finding Fontanez lacked standing to sue over website accessibility.
Ramon Fontanez’s individual and proposed class claims were dismissed, and Valley Lahvosh Baking Company, Incorporated obtained dismissal of the case with prejudice.
What happened
Fontanez v. Valley Lahvosh Baking Company, Incorporated involved Ramon Fontanez’s claims that Valley’s online store was difficult for visually impaired and legally blind people to use with screen-reading software. He sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York City law, and sought to represent a class of similar people.
Valley asked the court to dismiss the case because Fontanez lacked standing—the legal requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury and a real likelihood of being harmed again. The court found that his allegations about visiting the website and planning to return to buy crackers were too vague and lacked enough factual support. It also considered his many similar lawsuits and the timing of his website visits and filings.
The court dismissed the Americans with Disabilities Act and New York City claims for lack of standing, and dismissed the request for declaratory relief because it was not an independent claim. Judge Vyskocil denied Fontanez further permission to amend the complaint, and the court granted Valley’s motion to dismiss with prejudice and closed the case.
The detailed version
- Fontanez v. Valley Lahvosh Baking Company, Incorporated · No. 1:22-cv-05537
- Vyskocil
- Aug. 22, 2023
Background
Ramon Fontanez brought a proposed class action against Valley Lahvosh Baking Company, Incorporated, which operates an online store selling crackers and crackerbreads. Fontanez alleged that the website contained barriers that made it difficult to use with screen-reading software, including problems announcing when an item was added to the shopping cart, reading product names, and reading webpage titles. He asserted claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the New York City Human Rights Law, along with a request for declaratory relief.
Fontanez alleged that he visited the website five times in 2022, including twice before filing the lawsuit and three times afterward. He said he intended to return to buy a heart-shaped cracker product and learn about other products after the accessibility barriers were fixed. Valley moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), arguing that Fontanez lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because he lacked constitutional standing.
Standing analysis
To establish standing, Fontanez had to plausibly allege an injury that was concrete and particularized, fairly traceable to Valley’s conduct, and likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. In the website-accessibility context, the court explained that a plaintiff must provide factual allegations supporting a reasonable inference that the plaintiff intends to return to the particular website.
The court concluded that Fontanez’s allegations did not meet that standard. It found that his allegations about visiting the website to purchase the heart-shaped crackers were bare and did not explain how he learned about the website, why he was particularly interested in that product, or whether he had searched for comparable products elsewhere. The court also found that his stated intention to return to buy the product and learn about other products was vague and unsupported.
The court considered the broader context of the case, including that Fontanez had filed 45 lawsuits in the district since June 2022, that many used largely identical allegations, and that he and his counsel filed seven other similar cases on the same day as this lawsuit. The court also considered the timing of his visits to Valley’s website after the lawsuit was filed. It concluded that Fontanez had not shown a real and immediate threat of repeated injury.
Other claims and amendment
Because the court found that Fontanez lacked standing under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it dismissed his New York City Human Rights Law claim as well, explaining that the same standing requirements applied. The court also dismissed the separate request for declaratory relief because a request for a declaration is not itself an independent legal claim.
The court denied further leave to amend the complaint. It noted that Fontanez had already amended the complaint after Valley raised the standing issue and had not identified proposed additional allegations that would cure the problem and establish standing.
Disposition
The court granted Valley’s motion to dismiss with prejudice, dismissed the claims, denied further leave to amend, directed the clerk to close the case, and did not address Valley’s separate argument that the website was not a place of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.