Kohler v. Flava Enters., Inc., No. 11-56814 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, filed suit against Flava Enterprises Inc., a retail clothing store, alleging that a bench in the dressing room that was longer than forty-eight inches and ran along the entire length of the dressing room wall prevented him from making a diagonal transfer onto the bench from his wheelchair in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The district court granted summary judgment for Flava’s on all of Plaintiff’s ADA claims. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding (1) the bench did not comply with the 1991 ADA Accessibility Guidelines’s (ADAAG) mandate but did qualify as an “equivalent facilitation” under the ADAAG because Plaintiff could make a parallel transfer; and (2) because the bench complied with the 1991 standards and had not been altered since March 15, 2012, it fell within a safe harbor and was not required to comply with the more recent ADAAG standards promulgated in 2010.
Court Description: Americans with Disabilities Act. The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment and its denial of attorneys’ fees in an action under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Affirming the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the defendant, the panel held that a dressing room bench longer than forty-eight inches complied with the 1991 version of the ADA Accessibility Guidelines even though the arrangement of the bench prevented the plaintiff from making a diagonal transfer onto the bench from his wheelchair. The panel held that the bench did not comply with the ADAAG’s mandate but nonetheless qualified as an “equivalent facilitation”
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