Harty v. Grand-Sasso, Inc.

• Decision Date: 06 June 2019
• Docket Number: CIVIL ACTION NO. 18-CV-5474
• Parties: OWEN HARTY, Plaintiff v. GRAND-SASSO, INC., Defendant
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

OWEN HARTY, Plaintiff v. GRAND-SASSO, INC., Defendant

CIVIL ACTION NO. 18-CV-5474

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

June 6, 2019

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

JOYNER, J.

This civil action is before this Court on Motion of Defendant to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint for Lack of Standing Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1). For the reasons which follow, the Motion shall be STAYED for a period of sixty (60) days to afford the parties the opportunity to conduct discovery into the authenticity of the allegations set forth in Plaintiff's complaint concerning his standing to maintain this lawsuit.

Factual Background

According to the averments contained in his complaint, Plaintiff is a resident of Broward County, Florida, is paralyzed from the waist down and therefore uses a wheelchair to move about or "ambulate." (Compl., ¶1). Plaintiff further alleges that he "travels frequently to the Philadelphia metropolitan area to visit his niece, attend gun shows, and maintain his business and client contacts." (Id.) Plaintiff ostensibly at some unspecified time visited Defendant's property, the Grand Plaza Shopping Center located at 815-827 W. Sproul Road in Springfield, Delaware County, Pennsylvania "and plans to return to the property to avail himself of the goods and services offered to the public at the property and to determine whether the property has been made ADA complaint." (Compl., ¶s 2, 5). According to Plaintiff, he "has encountered architectural barriers at the subject property which discriminate against him on the basis of his disability and have endangered his safety," and which "also prevent [him] from returning to the property to enjoy the goods and services available to the public." (Id.) Finally, "Plaintiff is also a tester for the purpose of asserting his civil rights and monitoring, ensuring, and determining whether places of public accommodation are in compliance with the ADA." (Id.) He seeks injunctive relief, attorneys' fees, litigation expenses and costs pursuant to the Americans With Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §12101, et. seq.

By the motion which is now before us, Defendant submits that Plaintiff Harty fails to meet the threshold jurisdictional requirement of standing because he "fails to allege that he will suffer a real and immediate threat of future injury." Defendant further asserts that Plaintiff therefore cannot obtaininjunctive relief and his complaint should be dismissed with prejudice. Plaintiff, of course rejoins that his pleading sufficiently avers facts entitling him to the injunctive and other relief which he seeks and therefore the motion to dismiss should be denied.

Standards Governing Motions Under Rule 12(b)(1)

Federal Courts are courts of limited jurisdiction and a court must grant a motion to dismiss if it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to hear a claim. Sedlak v. Sturm, Civ. No. 17-532, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6458 at *4 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 6, 2018)(citing Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co. of Am., 511 U.S. 375, 377, 114 S. Ct. 1673, 128 L. Ed.2d 391 (1994) and In re Schering Plough Corp. Intron/Temodar Consumer Class Action, 678 F.3d 235, 243 (3d Cir. 2012)). Here, Defendant is challenging this Court's subject matter jurisdiction through the mechanism of a Rule 12(b)(1) motion by claiming that Plaintiff lacks the necessary "standing" to sue. Indeed, "[a] motion to dismiss for want of standing is properly brought pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), because standing is a jurisdictional matter." Constitution Party v. Aichele, 757 F.3d 347, 357 (3d Cir. 2014)(quoting Ballentine v. United States, 486 F.3d 806, 810, 48 V.I. 1059 (3d Cir. 2007)).

"A district court entertaining a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of standing must first ascertain whether it'presents a "facial attack" or a "factual attack" on the claim at issue, because that distinction determines how the pleading must be reviewed.'" Long v. SEPTA, 903 F.3d 312, 320 (3d Cir. 2018)(quoting Aichele, supra.). "A 'facial' attack ... is an argument that considers a claim on its face and asserts that it is insufficient to invoke the subject matter jurisdiction of the court because for example, it does not present a question of federal law, or because there is no indication of a diversity of citizenship between the parties or because some other jurisdictional defect is present. Such an attack can occur before the moving party has filed an answer or otherwise contested the factual allegations of the complaint." Aichele, 757 F.3d at 358(citing Mortensen v. First Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n., 549 F.2d 884, 889-92 (3d Cir. 1977)). "A court ruling on a facial attack considers only the complaint, viewing it in the light most favorable to the plaintiff." Long, supra. "Thus, a facial attack calls for a district court to apply the same standard of review it would use in considering a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), i.e., construing the alleged facts in favor of the nonmoving party." Aichele, at 358.

"A factual attack, in which the defendant contests the truth of the jurisdictional allegations, is a different matter: the court need not treat the allegations as true," and "the court must permit the plaintiff to respond with evidencesupporting jurisdiction." Long, supra.; Schuchardt v. President of the United States, 839 F.3d 336, 343 (3d Cir. 2016)(quoting Gould Electronics, Inc. v. United States, 220 F.3d 169, 176 (3d Cir. 2000). "The court may then determine jurisdiction by weighing the evidence presented by the parties but if there is a dispute of a material fact, the court must conduct a plenary trial on the contested facts prior to making a jurisdictional determination." Schuchardt, id.

Discussion: Standing to Sue

Article III of the Constitution limits the exercise of judicial power to "Cases" and "Controversies." Town of Chester v. Laroe Estates, Inc., 137 S. Ct. 1645, 1650, 198 L. Ed.2d 64, 70 (2017). "If a dispute is not a proper case or controversy, the courts have no business deciding it, or expounding the law in the course of doing so." Id.(quoting DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 341, 126 S. Ct. 1854, 164 L. Ed.2d 589 (2006)). Indeed, "[s]tanding to sue is a doctrine rooted in the traditional understanding of a case or controversy." Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 136 S. Ct. 1540, 1547, 194 L. Ed.2d 635, 643 (2016). "The [standing] doctrine developed in our case law to ensure that federal courts do not exceed their authority as it has been traditionally understood" ... by limiting "the category of litigants empowered to maintain a lawsuit in federal court to seek redress for a legal wrong." Id.(citing, inter alia, Rainesv. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 820, 117 S. Ct. 2312, 138 L. Ed.2d 849 (1997) and Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 473, 102 S. Ct. 752, 70 L. Ed.2d 700 (1982)). Thus, "[s]tanding requires more than just a 'keen interest in the issue.'" Trump v. Hawaii, 138 S. Ct. 2392, 2416, 201 L. Ed.2d 775 (2018).

Over the years, Supreme Court precedent has

"established that the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an 'injury in fact' - an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized ... ; and (b) actual or imminent, not 'conjectural' or 'hypothetical.' ... Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of - the injury has to be 'fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. ... Third, it must be 'likely,' as opposed to merely 'speculative,' that the injury will be 'redressed by a favorable decision."

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S. Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L. Ed.2d 351 (1992)(citing, inter alia, Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 155, 110 S. Ct. 1717, 1723, 109 L. Ed.2d 135 (1990); Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U.S. 26, 41-42, 96 S. Ct. 1917, 1926, 48 L. Ed.2d 450 (1976); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 508, 95 S. Ct. 2197, 2210, 45 L. Ed.2d 343 (1975) and Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 740-741, n. 16, 92 S. Ct. 1361, 1368-1369, n. 16, 31 L. Ed.2d 636 (1972)). It should be noted that aparticularized injury is one that affects the plaintiff in a personal and individual way. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, n. 1.

This precedent has further made clear that "it is the burden of the 'party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute.'" U.S. v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 743, 115 S. Ct. 2431, 2435, 132 L. Ed.2d 635 (1995)(quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. at 518, 95 S. Ct. at 2215 and McNutt v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 298 U.S. 178, 189, 56 S. Ct. 780, 785, 80 L. Ed. 1135 (1936)). In accord, Gill v. Whitford, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 1923, 201 L. Ed.2d 313 (2018). "Since they are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part of the plaintiff's case, each element must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation." Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S. Ct. at 2136. "And, at the final stage, those facts (if controverted) must be 'supported adequately by the evidence adduced at trial' to avoid dismissal on standing grounds." Hays, supra; Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S. Ct. at 2137. As a result, a Plaintiff's mere possession of authority to sue under and to vindicate a statutorily-granted right is not enough, in and of itself to satisfy the standing requirement. "Article III standingrequires a concrete injury even in the context of a statutory violation." Frank v. Gaos, 139 S. Ct. 1041, 203 L. Ed.2d 404 (2019); Spokeo, 136 S. Ct. at 1547-1548, 194 L. Ed. at 645.

In addition to the...