Binno v. Am. Bar Ass'n

• Decision Date: 16 June 2016
• Docket Number: No. 12-2263,12-2263
• Citation: 826 F.3d 338
• Parties: Angelo Binno, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. The American Bar Association, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

826 F.3d 338

Angelo Binno, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.The American Bar Association, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 12-2263

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: October 8, 2015

Decided and Filed: June 16, 2016

Rehearing En Banc Denied July 22, 2016

ARGUED: Jason Marc Turkish, Nyman Turkish PC, Southfield, Michigan, for Appellant. Anne E. Rea, Sidley Austin LLP, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellee. Ann M. Sherman, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Amicus Curiae. ON BRIEF: Jason Marc Turkish, Nyman Turkish PC, Southfield, Michigan, Melissa M. Nyman, Rocklin, California, Richard H. Bernstein, The Sam Bernstein LAW FIRM, Farmington Hills, Michigan, for Appellant. Anne E. Rea, Tacy F. Flint, John M. Skakun III, Steven J. Horowitz, Sidley Austin LLP, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellee. Ann M. Sherman, Office of the Michigan Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan, for Amicus Curiae.

Before: MERRITT, DAUGHTREY, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

DAUGHTREY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which MERRITT, J., joined and GRIFFIN, J., joined in the result. GRIFFIN, J. (pp. 349–54), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.

OPINION

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Angelo Binno is a legally blind individual who applied for admission to several law schools, unsuccessfully, and thereafter filed an action against the American Bar Association (ABA), under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), claiming that his lack of success was due to a discriminatory admissions test “mandated” by the ABA. The admissions examination in question, utilized by nearly all law schools in the United States, is the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Binno contends that the questions on the LSAT have a discriminatory effect on the blind and visually impaired because a quarter of those questions “require spatial reasoning and visual diagramming for successful completion.” He alleges that his poor performance on the LSAT has prevented him from being admitted to accredited law schools, in violation of Titles III and V of the ADA. The district court granted the ABA's motion to dismiss, finding that plaintiff Binno lacked standing to sue the ABA and, alternatively, that his amended complaint failed to state a claim for relief under either Title III or Title V of the ADA as a matter of law. We affirm, concluding that Binno does not have standing to sue the ABA because his injury was not caused by the ABA and because it is unlikely that his injury would be redressed by a favorable decision against the ABA. Moreover, even if Binno could establish standing, the district court correctly dismissed his Title III and Title V claims for failure to state claims for which relief may be granted.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Defendant ABA is a voluntary professional organization that, among other things, is certified by the federal Department of Education as the national legal-education accreditation agency in the United States.¹ A majority of state high courts rely on the ABA's approval of a law school to determine whether that state's legal-education requirement for admission to the bar is satisfied. The ABA promulgates standards that are binding on law schools in order to gain and maintain accreditation. Noncompliance with the ABA Standards may result in sanctions, including loss of a law school's ABA-accreditation status. Relevant to this litigation, ABA Standard 503 provides, in relevant part, “A law school shall require each applicant for admission as a first-year J.D. degree student to take a valid and reliable admission test to assist the school and the applicant in assessing the applicant's capability of satisfactorily completing the school's program of legal admission.”

In their admissions process, most American law schools utilize the LSAT as an admissions test, which is the only one that the ABA presumes to be “valid and reliable” under its interpretation of Standard 503.² The LSAT currently has sections that test analytical reasoning, reading comprehension, and logical reasoning, and it requires a writing sample. The questions in the analytical-reasoning section also are known as “logic games,” which, according to Binno's complaint, “require spatial reasoning and diagramming of visual concepts.”³ Binno alleges that because he is blind, he is “incapable of perceiving spatial relationships or performing the necessary diagramming to successfully complete the logic-games questions on the LSAT at a competitive level.” He alleges that the analytical-reasoning section thus caused him “substantial embarrassment, emotional distress, and mental anguish during the exam,” which negatively impacted his overall performance on the exam. By “offering” such a discriminatory admissions test, Binno, alleges, the ABA has caused “significant injury and irreparable harm to the Plaintiff, and others with disabilities, in violation of the ADA.

The ABA responds that although it accepts the LSAT as “valid and reliable,” the test is not an ABA product. Instead, the LSAT is written, administered, and scored by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), an entity that is not part of the ABA. The LSAC provides accommodations for persons with disabilities who wish to take the LSAT. These accommodations include, but are not limited to, additional time to complete the test and the use of a reader during the examination. ABA Interpretation 503-1 allows a law school to “use [ ] an admission exam other than the [LSAT]” but requires the school to establish that the other test is “valid and reliable.” ABA Interpretation 503-2 provides that Standard 503 “does not prescribe the particular weight that a law school should give to an applicant's admission test score in deciding whether to admit or deny admission to the applicant.”⁴

Without relevant documentation, but nevertheless convinced that he had been denied admission to three law schools in Michigan because of poor LSAT scores that were the result of discriminatory testing, Binno sued the ABA, alleging violation of Section 309 of the ADA's Title III, 42 U.S.C. § 12189, and Section 503 of Title V, 42 U.S.C. § 12203(b). In his amended complaint, Binno claimed that the ABA “has ‘offered’ and continues to ‘offer’ a discriminatory examination” in violation of Title III of the ADA. In the alternative, Binno alleged that ABA Standard 503 “interferes” with his ADA rights in violation of Title V of the ADA. Binno requested only equitable relief: (1) a declaration that the ABA has violated Binno's rights under the ADA; (2) an injunction preventing the ABA from accrediting law schools until the ABA “ceases its implementation of Standard 503”; (3) an injunction preventing the ABA from applying Standard 503 to Binno and other legally blind or visually impaired individuals; and (4) an injunction “restraining the [ABA] from discriminating against individuals with disabilities” and requiring that the ABA “provide individuals with disabilities with full and equal access to the programs and services” of law schools.

The ABA moved to dismiss Binno's complaint or, alternatively, for summary judgment. The district court judge granted the ABA's motion to dismiss, holding that Binno had sued the wrong party, that he lacked standing to bring his action, and that if he did have standing, Binno failed to state claims for relief under Title III and Title V of the ADA. Binno now appeals, challenging those determinations.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standing

Binno argues that the district court erred in dismissing his case for lack of standing under Article III of the United States Constitution. Standing is, of course, a threshold requirement for federal jurisdiction. If a party does not have standing to bring an action, then the court has no authority to hear the matter and must dismiss the case. Imhoff Inv., L.L.C. v. Alfoccino, Inc. , 792 F.3d 627, 631 (6th Cir. 2015). To establish Article III standing, the plaintiff must allege that: (1) he has suffered an injury-in-fact that is both “(a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical”; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct; and (3) it is likely that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560–61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) ; Coyne v. Am. Tobacco Co ., 183 F.3d 488, 494 (6th Cir. 1999). In the case of a plaintiff seeking equitable relief, as Binno does here, the claimant must allege “actual present harm or a significant possibility of future harm in order to demonstrate the need for pre-enforcement review.” Daubenmire v. City of Columbus , 507 F.3d 383, 388 (6th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The party seeking to invoke federal jurisdiction bears the burden to demonstrate standing and he ‘must plead its components with specificity.’ ” Id. (quoting Coyne , 183 F.3d at 494 ).

We review de novo a district court's determination of Article III standing. Murray v. U.S. Dep't of Treasury , 681 F.3d 744, 748 (6th Cir. 2012). In reviewing a challenge to standing, we may consider the complaint and any accompanying materials. Id. In evaluating a motion to dismiss, “both the trial and reviewing courts must accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party.” Warth , 422 U.S. at 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197.

1. Injury–In–Fact

To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff first must demonstrate that he has suffered an injury-in-fact that is both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,” Lujan , 504 U.S. at 560–61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, based on facts that are both “specific” and “concrete.” Warth , 422 U.S. at 508, 95 S.Ct. 2197. Conclusory allegations do not satisfy the requirements of Article III. See id.

In terms of injury, Binno alleges that he is “forced to take an examination [that] discriminates against blind and visually impaired persons”...