Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transp. Com'n, C-05-01597 EDL.

CourtUnited States District Courts. 9th Circuit. United States District Courts. 9th Circuit. Northern District of California
Citation611 F.Supp.2d 994
Decision Date27 March 2009
Docket NumberNo. C-05-01597 EDL.,C-05-01597 EDL.
PartiesSylvia DARENSBURG, et al., Plaintiffs, v. METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION, Defendant.

Bill Lann Lee, Margaret Elizabeth Hasselman, Sacha Crittenden Steinberger, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, P.C., Oakland, CA, Daniel Hutchinson, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Berstein, San Francisco, CA, Guillermo Mayer, Richard Anthony Marcantonio, Public Advocates, Inc., San Francisco, CA, Heather Annette Dunn Navarro, Palo Alto, CA, Jessica Valenzuela Santamaria, Attorney at Law, Palo Alto, CA, Matthew J. Brigham, Neha Mukund Marathe, Cooley Godward Kronish, Palo Alto, CA, Peter David Nussbaum, Daniel R. Purtell, Laura P. Juran, Linda Lye, Altshuler Berzon LLP, San Francisco, CA, Adrienne L. Bloch, William B. Rostov, Communities for a Better Environment, Oakland, CA, for Plaintiffs.

Kimon Manolius, Julia Heller Veit, Warren Richmond Webster, Hanson Bridgett LLP, Adam Wolff Hofmann, Karin Manwaring Arnold, Hanson Bridgett Marcus Vlahos & Rudy, LLP, Cynthia E. Segal, Francis F. Chin, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Oakland, CA, for Defendant.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLSIONS OF LAW FOLLOWING COURT TRIAL

ELIZABETH D. LAPORTE, United States Magistrate Judge.

Plaintiffs Sylvia Darensburg and Vivian Hain are individuals of color, and Plaintiffs Amalgamated Transit Union 192 and Communities for a Better Environment are organizations with minority members, who use the bus system of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District ("AC Transit"). Defendant Metropolitan Transportation Commission ("MTC"), is the Metropolitan Planning Organization ("MPO") for all twenty-six independent transit operators in the nine-county Bay Area. In this class action, Plaintiffs contend that MTC makes funding decisions that adversely affect AC Transit's largely minority riders, in comparison to the riderships of the other largest operators in the Bay Area. The seven largest operators, which collectively account for 95% of transit riders in the Bay Area, are: (1) AC Transit; (2) Bay Area Rapid Transit District ("BART"); (3) Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board ("Caltrain"); (4) Golden Gate Highway and Transportation District ("GGT"); (5) San Francisco Municipal Railway ("Muni"); (6) San Mateo County Transit District ("Sam-Trans"); and (7) Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority ("VTA").

More specifically, Plaintiffs contend that three of MTC's apparently neutral transportation funding practices in fact divert funding from preserving and improving existing bus operations to costly expansion and capital rehabilitation of rail services, disproportionately harming AC Transit's predominantly minority bus riders, in violation of California Government Code section 11135. Specifically, Plaintiffs challenge MTC's: (1) selection and funding of rail expansion projects over bus projects through its Regional Transit Expansion Program embodied in Resolution 3434; (2) allocation of "committed" funds to capital rehabilitation instead of transit operations, and to capital expansion instead of capital rehabilitation of the existing transit system; and (3) assignment of "uncommitted" funds to offset projected capital rehabilitation shortfalls, but not operating shortfalls. Plaintiffs argue that they have made a prima facie showing of disparate impact as to each of these three practices, that MTC cannot meet its burden of proving necessity in response, and that even if MTC has, Plaintiffs have shown equally effective but less discriminatory alternatives.

MTC disputes that Plaintiffs have established a prima facie case of disparate impact, and argues that even if they have, MTC has met its burden of showing a legitimate justification. First, MTC denies that it prioritizes rail expansion over maintenance and operations of the existing system. MTC also argues that it does not have control over the allocation of most "committed" funds, and that when it does have control over those funds, it has allocated funds for operations in the form of preventive maintenance to AC Transit. Second, MTC argues that it has little control over the allocation of "uncommitted" funds, and that it allocates the funds that it does control to cover operating shortfalls. Third, MTC further argues that its practices are justified by its reliance on the advice of the Partnership Board, which consists of representatives of federal and regional transit agencies, including AC Transit, and environmental entities, by its scoring system for allocation of committed funds that reflects the consensus of the Partnership Board, and by its "Fix it First" policy focusing on maintenance of existing capital systems, among other reasons. Finally, MTC argues that in response to its justification, Plaintiffs have not met their burden of showing an equally effective alternative with a less racially disproportionate impact.

On August 21, 2008, 2008 WL 3915349, the Court issued an order resolving the parties' motions for summary adjudication and for summary judgment. The Court denied Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Adjudication on the issue of whether Plaintiffs had established as a matter of law a prima facie case for disparate impact discrimination arising out of MTC's failure to fund the operating shortfalls it identifies in the quadrennial Regional Transportation Plans, while funding capital shortfalls. The Court granted in part and denied in part MTC's Motions for Summary Judgment, holding that there were triable issues of fact as to standing and disparate impact discrimination, but that there was no triable issue of fact as to intentional discrimination.

This case was tried to the Court in October 2008. Because this case involved an array of funding source and other acronyms familiar to the transit cognoscenti but not necessarily to the rest of the public, the Court notes that a Joint Glossary of Terms prepared by the parties is available, at docket number 340. The parties also submitted joint findings of fact (Nos. 1-369) on August 29, 2008 (docket no. 291), October 3, 2008 (docket no. 346), October 8, 2008 (docket no. 353) and October 21, 2008 (docket no. 364).1 After considering and weighing all the evidence and the parties' arguments, and having assessed the credibility of the witnesses, the Court enters the following findings of fact and conclusions of law as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a).

The Court begins with a few preliminary observations. First, throughout the litigation of this case, the Court has been impressed by the high level of advocacy on both sides of this dispute. Counsel have conducted themselves professionally and respectfully in their interactions with the Court and with each other during numerous court appearances and the three-week trial. The Court also appreciates the parties' responsiveness to the Court's suggestions to stipulate to facts not reasonably in dispute and to streamline presentation of this case at trial. The parties were wellserved by their counsel in this case. Second, the Court was also impressed by the sincere dedication to meeting the needs of disproportionately minority riders of AC Transit on the part of Plaintiffs and their witnesses. The Court was left with no doubt that AC Transit's bus riders would benefit from additional service and that many of them are burdened by fare hikes and service cuts, hampering their efforts to get to work, medical appointments, and grocery shopping and to meet other important needs. At the same time, the Court also came to appreciate the difficult challenge faced by MTC's public servants of meeting a wide array of complex transportation needs and competing priorities of multiple operators throughout the Bay Area with limited and often highly restricted funds. The Court found the fact witnesses on both sides to be sincere and generally credible, although occasionally, as noted below, somewhat biased in their perceptions due to their particular roles.

Further, the Court found the expert witnesses to be highly qualified. The Court was impressed by the extensive knowledge of Plaintiffs' expert, Thomas Rubin, of transportation planning and his concern with meeting the transit needs of underserved minority populations. As set forth in more detail below, however, the Court found that a few of his comparisons of relative funding and other matrices which he contended show unjustified disproportionate impact on AC Transit riders were not persuasive because they did not treat all transit operators alike or focused only on one type of comparison to the exclusion of other equally valid alternatives. Nor was the Court persuaded that the transportation statute and planning documents that he pointed to required the very strong, indeed paramount, priority on preserving existing urban bus operations that he advocated, at the cost of meeting other important transportation needs that MTC is also mandated by statute to consider. These other needs include, for example, a modern, integrated transit network that aids smart growth, and lures commuters out of their single occupancy vehicles to improve air quality. By the same token, the Court was not entirely persuaded by the testimony of MTC's planning expert, Dr. Robert Cervero, to the extent that he downplayed the importance of preserving urban bus services. Similarly, although MTC's statistician, Stefan Boedeker, provided a number of illuminating comparisons, two of his graphs used inconsistent scales that made AC Transit's funding pattern look more similar to that of other operators than it really was.

Ultimately, as explained in detail below, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have not proven disparate impact discrimination in violation of the California statute. It is worth pointing out that the Court's conclusion is supported in part by MTC's recent practice, commenced the same year that this lawsuit was...

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    • California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • February 16, 2011
    ...No. 111-2, 123 Stat. 5 (2009), amending 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5[e] at Sec. 2, Findings (1) and (2)." ( Darensburg v. Metropolitan Transp. Com'n (N.D.Cal.2009) 611 F.Supp.2d 994, 1040, fn. 4.) 14 CSAA couches this question in terms of the plaintiffs' ability or inability to "establish pretext." ......
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    • United States
    • California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • February 16, 2011
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