Whitaker v. Tesla Motors, Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 January 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-56497,19-56497
• Citation: 985 F.3d 1173
• Parties: Brian WHITAKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TESLA MOTORS, INC., a Delaware Corporation, Defendant-Appellee, and Does, 1–10, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

985 F.3d 1173

Brian WHITAKER, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.TESLA MOTORS, INC., a Delaware Corporation, Defendant-Appellee,andDoes, 1–10, Defendant.

No. 19-56497

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted November 10, 2020 Pasadena, California

Filed January 25, 2021

Russell Handy (argued) and Dennis Price, Center for Disability Access, San Diego, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rohit A. Sabnis (argued) and Arthur Gaus, Burnham Brown, Oakland, California, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: Barrington D. Parker, Jr.,^* Morgan Christen, and Paul J. Watford, Circuit Judges.

CHRISTEN, Circuit Judge:

Brian Whitaker appeals the district court's order granting Defendant Tesla Motors, Inc.'s (Tesla) motion to dismiss his complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.¹ Specifically, Whitaker challenges the district court's determination that his allegations were not sufficient to satisfy the standards articulated by Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009), and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). We affirm the district court's judgment.

I

Whitaker's complaint alleges that he is a quadriplegic who uses a wheelchair for mobility. Whitaker visits privately-owned businesses to determine whether their facilities comply with the standards set out in Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 12181 – 12189. If a facility he visits is not in compliance, Whitaker files a complaint seeking injunctive relief to force the business to remedy the barriers he encountered. This appeal arises from one such lawsuit.

According to the complaint, Whitaker visited a Tesla dealership in Sherman Oaks, California in July of 2019 and encountered inaccessible service counters that denied him full and equal access to the Tesla dealership and "created difficulty and discomfort." The complaint further alleges that Tesla's continued failure to provide accessible service counters deters Whitaker from returning to the dealership. Whitaker alleges "on information and belief, that there are other violations and barriers on the site that relate to his disability."

Tesla moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to allege facts sufficient to satisfy the pleading standards set forth in Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868, and Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929. Tesla argued that Whitaker failed to allege how barriers at the dealership prevented Whitaker from accessing Tesla's facility, and which service counter or counters were actually deficient. The district court agreed and ruled that Whitaker's argument was "inconsistent" with Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868, and Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929. The court did not describe an onerous or technical pleading standard; it observed that the necessary detail could have been shown through allegations that "the counter was too high" or "not in a place that had wheelchair access." The district court granted Whitaker leave to amend, but after Whitaker declined to do so, Tesla moved for dismissal for failure to prosecute and the court dismissed the complaint with prejudice. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm the district court's order granting Tesla's motion to dismiss.

II

We review de novo a district court's order granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Dunn v. Castro , 621 F.3d 1196, 1198 (9th Cir. 2010).

III

A defendant may move to dismiss a claim for relief pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) if the claim "fail[s] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Rule 8 requires that pleadings include "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Id. 8(a)(2). The claims in this case are that Tesla violated Title III of the ADA and the Unruh Act,² Cal. Civ. Code §§ 51 – 53.

"Congress enacted the ADA in 1990 to remedy widespread discrimination against disabled individuals." PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin , 532 U.S. 661, 674, 121 S.Ct. 1879, 149 L.Ed.2d 904 (2001). The ADA defines discrimination to include both "obviously exclusionary conduct—such as a sign stating that persons with disabilities are unwelcome or an obstacle course leading to a store's entrance"—and conduct that is not-so-obvious—such as "difficult-to-navigate restrooms and hard-to-open doors." Chapman v. Pier 1 Imports (U.S.) Inc. , 631 F.3d 939, 945 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc).

To meet its goal of removing barriers, Congress enacted Title III of the ADA to prohibit disability discrimination in the "full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of any place of public accommodation," 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a), with a nexus to interstate commerce, id. § 2000a(b). Title III requires the removal of "barriers ... where such removal is readily achievable," id. § 12182(b)(2)(A)(iv), in places of public accommodation, including stores and businesses open to the public. See 28 C.F.R. § 36.304.

In Twombly , the Supreme Court considered the adequacy of a complaint alleging that defendants orchestrated an antitrust conspiracy in violation of the Sherman Act. 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955. The Court observed that the complaint contained no factual allegations of an agreement as needed to establish a conspiracy. Id. at 564, 127 S.Ct. 1955. Instead, the pleading rested on legal conclusions premised upon descriptions of parallel conduct. Id. Twombly held that Rule 8 requires plaintiffs to include enough facts "to raise a right to relief above a speculative level," and cautioned that "a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Id. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955.

The Supreme Court provided further clarification of the necessary pleading standard in Iqbal , where it considered a claim alleging that several high-ranking officials violated the First and Fifth Amendments by purposefully instituting a policy of discrimination that resulted in plaintiff's incarceration at a facility where the conditions of confinement were inadequate. 556 U.S. at 668–69, 129 S.Ct. 1937. Iqbal explained that "[t]wo working principles underlie" Twombly : (1) courts need not accept as true legal conclusions or "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements;" and (2) only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief with well-pleaded facts demonstrating the pleader's entitlement to relief can survive a motion to dismiss. Id. at 678–79, 129 S.Ct. 1937. Because the complaint in Iqbal included only conclusory assertions of discrimination without factual allegations that plausibly gave rise to an entitlement of relief, the complaint was fatally defective. Id. at 679–80, 129 S.Ct. 1937. The Court explained that plaintiff's allegation that officials "purposefully adopted" a policy of discrimination was inadequate because it lacked factual allegations that could " ‘nudg[e]’ [his] claim of purposeful discrimination ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible.’ " Id. at 682–83, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ).

Taken together, Iqbal and Twombly require well-pleaded facts, not legal conclusions, Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, that "plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief," Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937. The plausibility of a pleading thus derives from its well-pleaded factual allegations. Id. Contrary to Whitaker's assertions, our case law reflects this Rule 8 standard. See, e.g. , Eclectic Properties E., LLC v. Marcus & Millichap Co. , 751 F.3d 990, 995–97 (9th Cir. 2014) ("Although a well-pleaded complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof is improbable, plaintiffs must include sufficient factual enhancement to cross the line between possibility and plausibility." (internal quotations and citations omitted)); Landers v. Quality Comms., Inc. , 771 F.3d 638, 641 (9th Cir. 2014) (applying Iqbal and Twombly to assess adequacy of Fair Labor Standards Act claim); Starr v. Baca , 652 F.3d 1202, 1216 (9th Cir. 2011) (describing common principles of pleading derived from Iqbal and Twombly and applying them to civil rights complaint); Moss v. U.S. Secret Serv. , 572 F.3d 962, 971–72 (9th Cir. 2009) ("The factual content contained within the complaint does not allow us to reasonably infer that the Agents ordered the relocation of Plaintiffs' demonstration because of its anti-Bush message, and it therefore fails to satisfy Twombly and Iqbal .").

Here, the district court correctly concluded Whitaker's complaint did not allege facts sufficient to support his ADA claim because the complaint primarily recited legal conclusions. See Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 679, 682, 129 S.Ct. 1937. The complaint alleges that Tesla "failed to provide accessible service counters," that Whitaker "personally encountered" the inaccessible service counters, and that he was denied "full and equal access." These allegations do little more than recite the elements of an ADA claim, and fall short of putting Tesla on notice of how the counters prevented Whitaker from full and equal access to the Tesla facility. The complaint failed to answer basic questions: Were the service counters too low? Or too high? Were they positioned in an area that was inaccessible for another reason? Without this sort of factual detail, the district court and Tesla were left in the dark about how the service counters denied Whitaker from full and equal enjoyment of the premises.

Whitaker argues that civil rights litigants are entitled to more lenient treatment. In support of this argument, he cites our decision in Doran v. 7-Eleven, Inc. , 524 F.3d 1034, 1039–40 (9th Cir. 2008). See also Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. , ...