Antonio Fernandez v. 23676-23726 Malibu Road, LLC ( 2023 )

FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ANTONIO FERNANDEZ, No. 22-55626
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:21-cv-01163-
v. DMG-PVC
23676-23726 MALIBU ROAD, LLC,
a California Limited Liability OPINION
Company; BUNGALOW LIGHTING
AND DESIGN, INC., a California
Corporation,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
Dolly M. Gee, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted June 8, 2023
Pasadena, California
Filed July 26, 2023
2 FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC
Before: Milan D. Smith, Jr. and Roopali H. Desai, Circuit
Judges, and Carol Bagley Amon, * District Judge.
Opinion by Judge Roopali H. Desai
SUMMARY **
Americans with Disabilities Act / Attorneys’ Fees
The panel reversed and vacated the district court’s order
awarding attorneys’ fees to defendants following the
dismissal for lack of standing of an action under the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
The panel held that, because the district court dismissed
the plaintiff’s claim for lack of standing, it lacked
jurisdiction to award fees under the Americans with
Disabilities Act’s fee provision, 42 U.S.C. § 12205.
COUNSEL
Russell C. Handy (argued), Potter Handy LLP, San
Francisco, California; Dennis Price, Center for Disability
Access, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellant.
*
The Honorable Carol Bagley Amon, United States District Judge for
the Eastern District of New York, sitting by designation.
**
This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC 3
Michele A. Dobson (argued), Law Offices of Michael A.
Dobson, Long Beach, California, for Defendants-Appellees.
OPINION
DESAI, Circuit Judge:
Antonio Fernandez’s claim under the Americans with
Disabilities Act (“ADA”) was dismissed for lack of
standing. Thereafter, the district court considered and
granted Malibu Road and Bungalow Lighting’s motion for
attorneys’ fees under the ADA’s fee provision, 42 U.S.C.
§ 12205. Mr. Fernandez did not appeal the dismissal of his
ADA claim for lack of standing, but he appeals the award of
attorneys’ fees, arguing that his lawsuit was not frivolous.
However, the issue before us is not whether Mr. Fernandez’s
claim was frivolous and therefore justified an award of fees,
but rather whether there is a basis to award attorneys’ fees
under the ADA’s fee provision after the underlying claim
has been dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. We find that,
because the district court dismissed Mr. Fernandez’s
underlying ADA claim for lack of standing, the court did not
have jurisdiction to award fees under the ADA’s fee
provision. We reverse and vacate the award.
BACKGROUND
Antonio Fernandez has paraplegia and uses a wheelchair
for mobility. Mr. Fernandez sued defendants, a lighting and
design store, alleging that he visited defendants’ store in
November 2020 and that the store did not comply with the
ADA and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act because its
aisles were too narrow. But in November 2020—in the
4 FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC
depths of the COVID-19 pandemic—defendants’ store was
open to the public only by appointment. Defendants moved
for summary judgment and, in support of their motion,
submitted a declaration from the store’s owner, Kevin
McEvoy, attesting that no client in a wheelchair had an
appointment at the store in November 2020. In response, Mr.
Fernandez did not submit any evidence showing that he
visited defendants’ store or had actual knowledge of any
ADA violation, nor did he file a declaration contesting Mr.
McEvoy’s declaration. Based on defendants’ uncontroverted
evidence, the district court granted defendants’ motion for
summary judgment on the ground that Mr. Fernandez lacked
standing to sue under the ADA. Mr. Fernandez did not
appeal the decision.
Defendants then sought attorneys’ fees under the ADA’s
fee provision, 42 U.S.C. § 12205, arguing that Mr.
Fernandez’s claims were frivolous because he did not visit
the store. 1 The district court agreed that Mr. Fernandez’s
claims were frivolous and granted defendants reasonable
attorneys’ fees. Mr. Fernandez challenges this finding,
arguing that his lawsuit was not frivolous.
LEGAL STANDARD
A plaintiff must establish standing for each claim he
asserts in federal court. Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330,
338–39 (2016). To demonstrate standing, a plaintiff must
show (1) that he has “suffered an injury in fact,” (2) that the
injury “is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the
defendant,” and (3) that the injury would likely “be redressed
by a favorable judicial decision.” Id. at 338. As a
1
Defendants did not seek fees under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of
Civil Procedure, or any other statute.
FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC 5
fundamental tenet of the Constitution’s case-or-controversy
requirement, the failure to establish standing deprives the
court of subject matter jurisdiction, without which a court
lacks authority to adjudicate the claim. See Friends of the
Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S.
167, 180–81 (2000).
ANALYSIS
The district court lacked jurisdiction to award defendants
attorneys’ fees under the ADA’s fee provision after it
dismissed Mr. Fernandez’s underlying ADA claim for lack
of standing. The court concluded that Mr. Fernandez did not
have standing to bring his disability discrimination claim
because he did not submit any evidence showing that he
either (1) encountered or (2) had actual knowledge of any
ADA violation, as necessary to establish an injury under the
ADA. See Doran v. 7-Eleven, Inc., 524 F.3d 1034, 1041–44
(9th Cir. 2008). Mr. Fernandez did not appeal that ruling and
consequently failed to establish standing.
If a plaintiff fails to establish standing, a court has “no
jurisdiction to hear the case.” Skaff v. Meridien N. Am.
Beverly Hills, LLC, 506 F.3d 832, 837 (9th Cir. 2007) (per
curiam). And “[a] court that lacks jurisdiction at the outset
of a case lacks the authority to award attorneys’ fees.” Id.;
cf. Diamond v. Charles, 476 U.S. 54, 69–71 (1986) (holding
that a party’s interest in a fee award is by itself insufficient
to confer standing). “An exception to this rule exists where
the statute under which a party seeks attorney’s fees contains
an independent grant of jurisdiction,” Latch v. United
States, 842 F.2d 1031, 1033 (9th Cir. 1988) (per curiam), or
where a court imposes sanctions under Rule 11, see Branson
v. Nott, 62 F.3d 287, 293 (9th Cir. 1995), abrogation on
6 FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC
other grounds recognized in Amphastar Pharms. Inc. v.
Aventis Pharma SA, 856 F.3d 696, 710 (9th Cir. 2017).
Because the ADA’s fee provision does not
independently confer jurisdiction and defendants did not
move for fees under any other rule or statute, the district
court lacked the authority to award fees under the ADA once
it dismissed Mr. Fernandez’s claim for lack of standing. The
ADA differs from statutes this court has found
independently confer jurisdiction to award fees or costs. For
example, statutes that authorize courts to order “the payment
of just costs” when a suit is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction,
28 U.S.C. § 1919, or require “payment of just costs . . .
including attorney fees” when a case was wrongfully
removed to federal court, 28 U.S.C. § 1447(c), provide an
independent basis for awarding costs or fees even if the court
lacks jurisdiction over the merits of the underlying action,
Branson, 62 F.3d at 293 n.10. But both § 1919 and § 1447(c)
explicitly state that fees can be awarded when the court lacks
jurisdiction over the underlying case, and both statutes are
exclusively non-substantive—they give the parties no rights
outside of litigation. In re Knight, 207 F.3d 1115, 1117 (9th
Cir. 2000).
By contrast, the ADA is primarily substantive and states
only that the court “may allow the prevailing party . . . a
reasonable attorney’s fee.” 42 U.S.C. § 12205. The statute
says nothing about permitting such awards when a case is
dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. This court has
implicitly recognized that fees cannot be awarded under the
ADA when the underlying case was dismissed for lack of
standing. See, e.g., Skaff, 506 F.3d at 837 (stating in dicta
that the district court could not award fees under the ADA if
the underlying case was dismissed for lack of standing);
D’Lil v. Best W. Encina Lodge & Suites, 538 F.3d 1031,
FERNANDEZ V. 23676-23726 MALIBU RD., LLC 7
1036 (9th Cir. 2008) (finding that the district court needed to
consider the issue of standing sua sponte because, if the
plaintiff did not have standing, the district court would not
have authority to award attorneys’ fees under the ADA).
Today we make explicit what we have implicitly
recognized in our prior decisions to provide litigants and
courts with clarity regarding the ADA’s fee provision. A
court that dismisses an ADA claim for lack of standing also
lacks jurisdiction to award attorneys’ fees under the ADA’s
fee provision, 42 U.S.C. § 12205. Under these
circumstances, Rule 11 provides an avenue for defendants to
seek fees against plaintiffs who bring frivolous lawsuits.
Compare Summers v. Teichert & Son, Inc., 127 F.3d 1150,
1154 (9th Cir. 1997) (stating that a court must find “that the
plaintiff’s action was frivolous, unreasonable, or without
foundation” to award a defendant fees under the ADA
(quoting Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U.S.
412, 421 (1978)), with Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 (permitting
sanctions when a party’s legal arguments are frivolous or its
factual contentions lack evidentiary support).
Because we reverse the district court’s award of
attorneys’ fees for lack of jurisdiction, we do not decide
whether Mr. Fernandez’s claim was frivolous.
REVERSED and VACATED.