NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JUN 14 2022
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
DWAIN LAMMEY, No. 20-55070
Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No.
2:19-cv-04484-JAK-PLA
v.
PLAZA SEGUNDO, LLC, a California MEMORANDUM*
Limited Liability Company; DOES, 1-10,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
John A. Kronstadt, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted June 10, 2022**
Pasadena, California
Before: M. SMITH, BADE, and VANDYKE, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-Appellant Dwain Lammey appeals the district court’s order
declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his California Unruh Civil
Rights Act (“Unruh Act”) claim, pursuant to the “exceptional circumstances”
*
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).
exception under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(4). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, and we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
The decision to invoke the “exceptional circumstances” exception to
supplemental jurisdiction under § 1367(c)(4) “entails a two-part inquiry.” Arroyo
v. Rosas, 19 F.4th 1202, 1210 (9th Cir. 2021). “First, the district court must
articulate why the circumstances of the case are exceptional within the meaning of
§ 1367(c)(4).” Id. (citation omitted). “Second, in determining whether there are
compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction in a given case, the court should
consider what best serves the principles of economy, convenience, fairness, and
comity . . . .” Id. (citation omitted).
The district court determined that exceptional circumstances existed to
decline supplemental jurisdiction because of procedural and heightened pleading
requirements California has imposed on “construction-related accessibility claims”
pursuant to the Unruh Act. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.50. The district court
did not abuse its discretion in this holding. See Arroyo, 19 F.4th at 1211–13
(stating that the “recent confluence of several California-law rules have combined
to create a highly unusual systemic impact on [Americans with Disabilities Act
(“ADA”)]-based Unruh Act cases that clearly threatens to have a significant
adverse impact on federal-state comity,” which was “‘exceptional’ in any
meaningful sense of the term”).
2
Under our recent decision in Arroyo, however, the district court abused its
discretion in determining that “compelling reasons” existed for declining
supplemental jurisdiction under the specific circumstances of this case. See id. at
1214. In the same order in which the district court declined to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim, the district court determined
that Lammey had sufficiently pleaded a violation of the ADA and granted default
judgment on that claim. Because “a violation of the ADA is automatically, without
more, a violation of the Unruh Act,” and because, at the time the district court
issued its order declining supplemental jurisdiction, the district court had already
ruled on the merits of the ADA claim, “it would be a sheer waste of time and
resources to require [the Unruh Act] claim to be refiled in state court,” and comity
would “certainly not [be] served by sending back to state court litigation in which
the result is wholly foreordained.” Id. at 1214–15 (citation omitted). We thus
reverse the district court and remand for the district court to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over the Unruh Act claim.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
3