Long v. Coast Resorts, PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS-CROSS-APPELLEES

• Citation: 267 F.3d 918
• Decision Date: 16 November 2000
• Docket Number: Nos. 99-16468,PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS-CROSS-APPELLEES,99-16497,DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES-CROSS-APPELLANTS,s. 99-16468
• Parties: (9th Cir. 2001) ROGER A. LONG; RONALD RAY SMITH; AND DISABLED RIGHTS ACTION COMMITTEE, A UTAH NONPROFIT CORPORATION,v. COAST RESORTS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION; COAST HOTELS AND CASINOS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION; COAST WEST, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION,
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 918

267 F.3d 918 (9th Cir. 2001)

ROGER A. LONG; RONALD RAY SMITH; AND DISABLED RIGHTS ACTION COMMITTEE, A UTAH NONPROFIT CORPORATION, PLAINTIFFS-APPELLANTS-CROSS-APPELLEES v. COAST RESORTS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION; COAST HOTELS AND CASINOS, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION; COAST WEST, INC., A NEVADA CORPORATION, DEFENDANTS-APPELLEES-CROSS-APPELLANTS

Nos. 99-16468, 99-16497

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

Argued and Submitted November 16, 2000--San Francisco, California

Filed October 3, 2001

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Counsel: Richard F. Armknecht (argued), III, Salt Lake City, Utah, for the plaintiffs-appellants/cross-appellees.

Barry Lieberman (argued), Las Vegas, Nevada, for the defendants-appellees/cross-appellants.

Thomas E. Chandler (argued), Timothy J. Moran and Jessica Dunsay Silver, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for amicus curiae United States of America.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Roger L. Hunt, Magistrate Judge, Presiding D.C. No. CV-97-01570-RLH

Before: Alex Kozinski, Michael Daly Hawkins, and Marsha S. Berzon, Circuit Judges.

Hawkins, Circuit Judge

This appeal arises out of a suit brought by two disabled individuals and a non-profit disabled rights advocacy organization against the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada ("the Orleans"), which is owned and operated by the appellees. The suit, which was disposed of by the magistrate judge through summary judgment, alleged several areas of non-compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). Appellants challenge the adverse summary judgment of several of the allegations of non-compliance, argue that their Nevada state law damages claim should have survived summary judgment, and ask for a recalculation of attorney's fees. The Orleans cross-appeals the one instance of noncompliance found by the magistrate judge and argues that appellants' appeal is not timely.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

This suit was brought under the ADA's enforcement provision, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12188(a), which incorporates the remedies and procedures set forth in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ¹ After a visit to the Orleans in the fall of 1997, the plaintiffs brought suit citing several ADA Accessibility Guidelines ("Guidelines") ² and alleging five areas of non-compliance: (1) 819 of the 839 hotel rooms had bathroom doorways with a clear opening smaller than the thirty-two inches required by the Guidelines; (2) two of the four slot change kiosks ³ in the casino did not have accessible service counters; (3) the employee work areas at the four change kiosks were elevated and inaccessible to wheelchairs; (4) two of the three casino bars did not have accessible bar counters or table seating; and (5) three of the nine pool cabanas were not located on a wheelchair accessible route. ⁴ The complaint sought declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, and litigation expenses under the ADA and damages under Nevada Revised Statutes §§ 651.070 ("Nevada ADA"). The parties stipulated to all facts relevant to summary judgment and this appeal.

The Orleans moved for summary judgment and the plaintiffs cross-moved for partial summary judgment. Following a hearing, the magistrate judge entered judgment granting in part and denying in part both motions. On issues relevant to this appeal, the magistrate judge found that: (1) plaintiffs had not shown injury sufficient to continue with their damages claim under the Nevada ADA; (2) while the bathroom door width was a "technical violation" of the Guidelines, there had been "substantial compliance with the spirit of the law" and therefore no injunctive relief was merited; (3) wheelchair users were not denied "full and fair enjoyment " of the facilities merely because three of the nine pool cabanas were inaccessible; (4) the two inaccessible bars in the "pit" area were in violation of the ADA; and (5) the slot change kiosks were not in violation because supervisors were not required to enter the kiosks. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.§§ 1291.

ANALYSIS

I. Timeliness of the Appeal

The magistrate judge entered an "order and judgment" on December 31, 1998. An amendment in the form of a separate judgment correcting a few typographical errors was entered January 12, 1999. The Orleans contends that the relevant date of judgment is the former; appellants contend it is the latter. The issue is critical because appellants filed a Motion for Clarification on January 26, which would be timely only under the later date of judgment. Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(iii iv) (party has ten days after judgment, excluding legal holidays and weekends, to file a Rule 59 motion and toll the appeals clock).

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58 requires that "[e]very judgment shall be set forth on a separate document. " Our case law requires a mechanical application of Rule 58 so as to avoid the inequity of a party being denied the opportunity to appeal because of a failure to realize which of several documents or docket entries constituted "entry" of judgment. See Beaudry Motor Co. v. Abko Props., Inc., 780 F.2d 751 (9th Cir. 1986). Thus, we held in Paddack v. Morris , 783 F.2d 844, 846 (9th Cir. 1986), that Rule 58's separate judgment requirement was not satisfied by a district court's seven-page order detailing facts and legal analysis, but instead only by its subsequent filing of a five-line judgment. Here, the "order and judgment" entered on December 31, 1998 was not a final judgment because it did not constitute separate entry of judgment, but rather contained facts and legal analysis. The district court entered its final judgment on January 12, 1999, when it issued a judgment on a separate document. Thus, this appeal was timely filed.

II. Bathroom Door Width

Guideline 9.4 requires that: "Doors and doorways designed to allow passage into and within all sleeping units or other covered units shall comply with [Guideline ] 4.13.5." Guideline 4.13.5 requires that such doorways have a minimum opening of thirty-two inches. It is undisputed that the doorway between the sink area (which is open to the bedroom area) and the room containing the toilet and bathtub/shower is only twenty-eight inches wide in the 819 "standard" rooms at the Orleans. The Orleans puts forward two arguments justifying non-compliance.

A. Applicability of Guideline 9.4

First, the Orleans contends that Guideline 9.4 does not apply to bathroom doors because the bathroom is not part of the "sleeping unit." To support this contention, the Orleans points out that Guideline 9.2, which addresses requirements for accessible units, distinguishes sleeping rooms from bathrooms. The Orleans argues that the explicit inclusion of bathrooms in 9.2 leads to a presumption that the lack of an explicit reference to bathrooms in 9.4 means that Congress intended to exclude bathrooms from 9.4 altogether. The Orleans's construction of Guideline 9.4 fails to comport with the language of the Guideline itself or the legislative history.

The Orleans's construction of Guideline 9.4 is illogical and would render some of the Guideline's language inoperative. The term "sleeping unit," when used in connection with a hotel, implies the entirety of the individual hotel guest unit -the bedroom, bathroom, and other private spaces occupied exclusively by a guest. The fact that Guideline 9.4 refers to doors "within" sleeping "units" rather than "within" sleeping "rooms" signals that all facilities connected to the sleeping room are covered. In other words, a sleeping "unit" is larger than a sleeping "room," not, as the Orleans suggests, smaller.

Even if "sleeping unit" does refer to just the sleeping area, Guideline 9.4 would still cover the bathroom door: the door from the bedroom to the bathroom is, indisputably, a door "into" the sleeping area from the bathroom, just as the door from the hall is a door "into" the sleeping area. So even if "sleeping unit" does refer just to the sleeping area, Guideline 9.4 would still cover the bathroom door. Although here there is a second door within the bathroom, it defies logic to think that the intent was to allow hotels to render the bedroom inaccessible from part of a guest's bathroom; the more sensible conclusion is that both the bathroom doors are doors"into" the bedroom from the toilet area, since one has to go through both to get to the bedroom.

Finally, the regulators who wrote Guideline 9.4 had specific guidance on the accessibility of hotel bathrooms from Congress' deliberations on the statute. The congressional reports accompanying passage of the ADA made it clear that "all doors and doorways designed to allow passage into and within all hotel rooms and bathrooms [are required] to be sufficiently wide to allow passage by individuals who use wheelchairs . . . ." H.R. Rep. No. 485, Pt. 2, 101st Cong., 2d Sess. 118 (1990); S. Rep. No. 116, 101st Cong., 1st Sess. 70 (1989) (emphasis added).

Thus, the magistrate judge correctly ruled that Guideline 9.2 applies to the interior bathrooms at the Orleans and was violated.

B. No Substantial Compliance or Undue Burden Exception

Though the magistrate judge found that Guideline 9.2 applies to the bathroom doors, he nonetheless declined to order injunctive relief because "[w]hile this may be a technical violation of the language of the Guidelines, the Court finds there has been substantial compliance with the spirit of the law. Considering the enormous expense required to modify the structure, and the near absence of hardship and that constituting a minimal inconvenience to wheelchair users, this Court is loathe [sic] to grant injunctive relief to Plaintiffs on this issue."

The magistrate judge's ruling was in error. In enacting the ADA, Congress adopted two distinct systems for regulating building accessibility: one to apply to existing facilities (those designed and constructed for occupancy before January 26, 1993)...