Irma Ramirez v. Golden Creme Donuts ( 2016 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
NOV 10 2016
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-17054
IRMA RAMIREZ; DAREN
HEATHERLY, D.C. No. 3:12-cv-05656-LB
Plaintiff - Appellants,
MEMORANDUM*
v.
GOLDEN CRÈME DONUTS; et al.,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Laurel D. Beeler, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Submitted October 21, 2016**
San Francisco, California
Before: KLEINFELD and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN,*** District
Judge.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Edward R. Korman, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
Irma Ramirez and Daren Heatherly (the “Appellants”), both of whom are
disabled, sued Golden Crème Donuts and the owners of the building in which it
operates (collectively, “Golden Crème Donuts”), alleging several violations of the
Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) and California law. After Appellants
filed suit, Golden Crème Donuts remediated all of the alleged ADA violations in
the donut shop except for those associated with the public restroom, to which it
permanently closed off public access. When the parties cross-moved for summary
judgment, the sole disputed ADA violation pertained to the restroom. The district
court granted Golden Crème Donuts’s motion concluding that, because the
restroom was no longer open to the public, it was no longer subject to the dictates
of the ADA, and thus the case was moot. The district court declined to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over Appellants’ state-law claims. On appeal,
Appellants contend that Golden Crème Donuts’s closure of the restroom did not
moot their claim for injunctive relief under the ADA, and that, because Golden
Crème Donuts violated the California Retail Food Code—which, they argue,
requires Golden Crème Donuts to maintain a public restroom—by closing the
restroom, it was error for the district court to grant Golden Crème Donuts’s motion
for summary judgment.
2
1. Title III of the ADA only forbids “discrimination on the basis of disability
in ‘any place of public accommodation,’” which means that an “employees-only
restroom” not open to the public “is not a place of public accommodation and thus is
not subject to Title III of the ADA.” Doran v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 524 F.3d 1034, 1048
(9th Cir. 2008) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 12182(a)). In this case, there is no dispute that
Golden Crème Donuts has closed the restroom at the donut shop from public access.
Because “the exclusion of a disabled plaintiff from an employees-only restroom does
not violate the ADA,” the district court could not enjoin Golden Crème Donuts to
make the restroom handicap accessible. See Doran, 524 F.3d at 1048. Appellants no
longer have a claim for injunctive relief under the ADA. Thus, the case is moot.
2. Nor does any mootness exception apply. Because there is a permanent wall
blocking public access to the restroom corridor, it is “absolutely clear that the
allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur,” and thus the
voluntary cessation mootness exception does not apply. Friends of the Earth, Inc. v.
Laidlaw Envt’l Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000) (quoting United States
v. Concentrated Phosphate Exp. Ass’n, 393 U.S. 199, 203 (1968)). Indeed, even if
California law required Golden Crème Donuts to provide a public restroom in the
future, the entity requiring them to open a public restroom would almost certainly
require that future restroom to comply with the ADA. See Cal. Health & Safety Code
3
§ 113715 (requiring that “[a]ny construction, alteration, remodeling, or operation of
a food facility . . . shall be in accordance with all applicable local, state, and federal
statutes, regulations, and ordinances”).
Finally, the exception applicable to cases “where the trial court’s order will have
possible collateral legal consequences” does not apply. Koppers Indus., Inc. v. EPA,
902 F.2d 756, 758 (9th Cir. 1990). The consequence of which Appellants complain
is the closure of the public restroom, but even if the district court ordered Golden
Crème Donuts to make the restroom handicap accessible, it could not order Golden
Crème Donuts to open it to the public. Thus, even if that consequence were a legal
one, which it was not, that consequence did not follow from the district court’s order.
3. Golden Crème Donuts has moved for judicial notice to be taken of a state-
court complaint that Appellants filed after the district court granted Golden Crème
Donuts’s motion for summary judgment on Appellants’ ADA claim and declined to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over their remaining state-law claims. Because
Appellants make no argument that the district court erred by declining to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction, that issue is not before the panel.
The motion requesting that judicial notice to be taken is DENIED and the
decision of the district court is AFFIRMED.
4