Payan v. Los Angeles Community College District

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: March 11, 2026
• Docket: 24-1809
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 11 2026 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

ROY PAYAN; PORTIA MASON; No. 24-1809 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE D.C. No. BLIND, INC.; NATIONAL FEDERATION 2:17-cv-01697-SVW-SK OF THE BLIND OF CALIFORNIA, INC.,

Plaintiffs - Appellants, MEMORANDUM*

v.

LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted November 18, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: BYBEE, LEE, and DE ALBA, Circuit Judges.

Roy Payan, Portia Mason, National Federation of the Blind, Inc., and

National Federation of the Blind of California, Inc., appeal the district court’s final

judgment and permanent injunctive order after retrial on remand from this Court in

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. Appellants’ disability discrimination action under Title II of the Americans with

Disabilities Act (“ADA”) against Los Angeles Community College District

(“LACCD”). Appellants challenge the scope of the injunctive relief ordered by the

district court. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.1

1. First, we address the threshold issue presented by LACCD: whether

Appellants forfeited the right to challenge the scope of the district court’s

injunction by accepting the benefits of it, in its existing form. “Ordinarily, only a

party aggrieved by a judgment or order of a district court may exercise the

statutory right to appeal” said judgment or order. Deposit Guar. Nat. Bank,

Jackson, Miss. v. Roper, 445 U.S. 326, 333 (1980). Although Appellants prevailed

in attaining a permanent injunctive order, they are still an “aggrieved” party

because the order denied, in part, the remedy they requested. Cf. Forney v. Apfel,

524 U.S. 266, 266–67 (1998) (holding that the Ninth Circuit erred in concluding

that a party could not appeal the granted relief because she was the prevailing

party). Because Appellants argue that the injunctive relief granted fails to

adequately address their requests and the jury’s findings of liability, Appellants

retain the right to challenge the scope of the injunction. Thus, we can hear this

challenge.

1 We explain separately, in a contemporaneously filed published opinion, the district court’s error in granting remittitur.

2 24-1809 2. In appealing the district court’s injunctive order, Appellants challenge

the scope of the injunction. Specifically, Appellants argue the injunction only

remedies three areas where the jury found LACCD liable—the library, websites,

and accommodation forms—leaving most of the ADA violations found at trial

unaddressed. We review both the district court’s decision to grant permanent

injunctive relief and the scope of the injunctive relief for abuse of discretion.

Arizona Dream Act Coalition v. Brewer, 855 F.3d 957, 965 (9th Cir. 2016);

Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc. v. Fung, 710 F.3d 1020, 1030 (9th Cir. 2013).

Factual findings underlying the injunctive relief are reviewed for clear error.

Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc., 710 F.3d at 1030.

Following the trial on remand, the district court required the parties to

participate in post-trial hearings on the issue of injunctive relief, where the court

considered additional evidence and testimony. During these hearings, LACCD

provided evidence it had made significant changes since 2015–2018—the time

period at issue in the case—to its websites, existing software programs, and its

process for procuring new software programs. Specifically, LACCD created a new

website platform with detailed requirements for accessibility; upgraded the

accessibility of its software programming; and introduced and implemented an

Equally Effective Alternative Access Plans (“EEAAP”) for the procurement of new

electronic educational resources. LACCD also discontinued the use of the

3 24-1809 inaccessible MyMathLab and Etudes classroom management programs.

Accounting for these significant changes, the district court determined that

the issues of liability warranting injunctive relief were those pertaining to the

inaccessible library resources, school websites, and accommodation forms. The

district court’s injunctive order also required that LACCD conduct periodic

independent assessments to review the accessibility of software programs. The

court did not order injunctive relief for items of liability it characterized as “single

incidents” of ADA violations, such as LACCD’s failure to provide notetakers for

Payan, the failure to allow Payan to record one class, and LACCD’s failure to

provide adequate testing accommodations to Payan and Mason. Additionally, the

court declined to require the plaintiffs’ requested measure of wholesale training,

expert monitoring, and periodic reporting.

“The district court has broad latitude in fashioning equitable relief when

necessary to remedy an established wrong,” Alaska Ctr. for Env’t v. Browner, 20

F.3d 981, 986 (9th Cir. 1994), and we accordingly find that the district court did

not abuse its discretion in weighing the relevant evidence and determining that

injunctive relief was only warranted for issues with the Los Angeles Community

College (“LACC”) library, LACC and LACCD websites, accommodation forms,

software programs, and oversight of the EEAAP.

Moreover, the district court did not clearly err in its factual determination

4 24-1809 that several of the issues of liability constituted singular violations of the ADA,

rather than a systemic problem warranting system-wide relief. See Armstrong v.

Schwarzenegger, 622 F.3d 1058, 1072 (9th Cir. 2010) (holding that the district

court abused its discretion by granting system-wide relief where the evidence

consisted largely of single incidents that could be isolated from each other). The

individual instances of ADA violations presented in this case are not comparable to

the evidentiary support we have previously found justified system-wide injunctive

relief. See Armstrong v. Davis, 275 F.3d 849, 871 (9th Cir. 2001) (upholding

system-wide injunctive relief where “the district court’s extensive findings of fact

set[] forth in meticulous detail the injuries suffered by seventeen different prisoners

and parolees at a variety of Board facilities and hearings”), overruled on other

grounds by Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499 (2005). As such, the district court

did not abuse its discretion in formulating the scope of injunctive relief.

ORDER AFFIRMED.

5 24-1809