Cota v. Ben Bridge-Jeweler, Inc.

• Court: District Court, S.D. California
• Decided: December 18, 2020
• Docket: 3:20-cv-01496
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 JULISSA COTA Case No.: 20cv1496-LAB (RBB)

12 Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING JOINT 13 v. MOTIONS FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO ANSWER; AND 14 BEN BRIDGE-JEWELER, INC.

15 Defendant. ORDER DENYING WITHOUT PREJUDICE MOTION TO 16 STRIKE 17 [DOCKET NUMBERS 4, 5, 8.] 18

19 20 Plaintiff brought this putative class action, bringing claims under the 21 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and supplemental state law claims. Plaintiff 22 asks the Court to compel Defendant to upgrade its website to be accessible to 23 blind and visually impaired people. The joint motions for extension of time to 24 answer (Docket nos. 4 and 5) are GRANTED, and the answer is accepted as filed. 25 On December 14, Plaintiff filed a motion to strike around twenty of the 26 answer’s defenses. The motion describes them all as affirmative defenses, 27 although most of them are not. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c)(1) (listing affirmative 28 defenses). Of the defenses the motion seeks to strike, only laches, estoppel, and 1 waiver are clearly affirmative defenses, although one or two others pertaining 2 specifically to ADA claims may also fit within the category. 3 Several of what Plaintiff labels affirmative defenses are jurisdictional or 4 quasi-jurisdictional, and the Court cannot ignore them regardless of how 5 adequately or inadequately they are raised — or whether they are raised at all. 6 Specifically, mootness and standing are clearly jurisdictional. Several other 7 defenses relate to the lack of one of the elements of standing (i.e., a concrete injury 8 fairly traceable to Defendant), even if they are also related to the merits. Others 9 pertain to the availability of injunctive relief. 10 At the outset, the Court notes that motions to strike are generally 11 disfavored, because their importance in federal practice is limited, and because 12 they often lead to pointless delays and costs. Kohler v. Islands Restaurants, LP, 13 280 F.R.D. 560, 564 (S.D. Cal., 2012). See also Romero v. Dept. Stores Nat’l 14 Bank, 2015 WL 13828656, slip op. at *1 n.1 (S.D. Cal., Apr. 8, 2015) (concluding 15 that plaintiff’s motion to strike was likely filed to impose costs). 16 The fact that this is a putative class action whose class consists of unknown 17 people with unknown injuries also weighs against granting the motion. Plaintiff 18 herself does not know and cannot allege the facts of putative class members’ 19 claims. Expecting Defendant to allege them, or forgo its defenses against those 20 claims, would be unreasonable. See Craten v. Foster Poultry Farms Inc., 2016 WL 21 3457899, at *3 (D. Ariz., June 24, 2016) (recognizing that requiring an answer to 22 be pled with the same level of specificity as a complaint would unreasonably 23 burden defendants). 24 The complaint itself is also sparsely pled at key points. While it is replete 25 with detail on some subjects, it tends to retreat into ambiguity when alleging 26 Plaintiff’s own individual claims. 27 To illustrate, the complaint mentions seventeen barriers that may exist on 28 websites in general and which can deny visually impaired people equal access. 1 (Compl., ¶ 22.) Of these, it alleges four were found on Defendant’s website, though 2 it provides little detail about them. (Id. ¶ 27.) It implies that others exist, without 3 saying what they are. (Id.) Although it alleges that Plaintiff has visited the website 4 numerous times in an attempt to do business with Defendant (id., ¶¶ 26, 29, 40), 5 no date or approximate date for any of Plaintiff’s visits to the website is given. 6 Alleging an approximate date is particularly important here, because — as Plaintiff 7 herself recognizes — Defendant’s website has changed over time. (See id., ¶ 40 8 (alleging that Plaintiff visited “prior iterations of the Defendant’s website”).) The 9 closest the complaint ever comes is in paragraph 28, where it makes the general 10 allegation: “Recently in 2020, Plaintiff attempted to do business with Defendant on 11 Defendant’s website and Plaintiff encountered barriers to access on Defendant’s 12 website.” If Plaintiff cannot allege when she last visited the site, what barriers she 13 encountered, and how she was denied access on that occasion, Defendant can 14 hardly be expected to supply that information. 15 The motion recognizes that the “fair notice” standard applies. (Mot. at 1:3– 16 5 (citing Kohler v. Islands Restaurants, LP, 280 F.R.D. at 564).) Its argument, 17 however, applies a higher standard. See Cota v. Aveda Corp., 2020 WL 6083423, 18 slip op. at *4 (S.D. Cal., Oct. 14, 2020) (pointing out that the “fair notice” standard 19 did not require the type of factual allegations or level of detail that plaintiff 20 suggested was required). See also Kohler, 280 F.R.D. at 564 (“Fair notice . . . does 21 not . . . require a detailed statement of facts.”) 22 The motion also argues that Plaintiff would be burdened by having to 23 litigate these defenses. This is, however, a remote prospect. 24 The Court recognizes that motions to strike have a role to play, and that 25 even in similar ADA cases courts sometimes grant them or grant them in part. See 26 DeSalvo v. Islands Restaurants, L.P., 2020 WL 4035071 (C.D. Cal., July 16, 2020). 27 But here, Plaintiff’s motion does not advance the litigation. See Adtrader, Inc. v. 28 Google LLC, 2019 WL 8508038, slip op. at *1 (N.D. Cal., Sept. 4, 2019) (“Plaintiffs’ 1 ||motion [to strike affirmative defenses] does not move the litigation forward, and 2 Court discourages such motions.”) The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are 3 ||to be interpreted and applied to ensure the just, speedy, and inexpensive 4 ||disposition of every case. Fed. R. Civ. P. 1. Under these circumstances, there is 5 reason to require Defendant to bear the burden of opposing the motion or 6 ||amending its answer at this stage of the proceedings. 7 The motion is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. 8 9 IT IS SO ORDERED. 10 ||Dated: December 18, 2020 11 / nt 4 G Ye 12 Honorable Larry Alan Burns 43 Chief United States District Judge 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28