Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-02264/USCOURTS-azd-2_11-cv-02264-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 446
Nature of Suit: Americans with Disabilities Act - Other
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Kimberly A. O'Connor, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Scottsdale Healthcare Corp; et al., 

Defendants. 

No. CV11-2264-PHX-JAT

ORDER 

 On May 15, 2012, the Court granted Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s 

Complaint. (Doc. 18.) The Court dismissed Plaintiff’s claim under the Americans with 

Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) for lack of jurisdiction and dismissed the remaining state 

law claims without prejudice. On May 29, 2012, Plaintiff filed a Motion for 

Reconsideration and to Set Aside the Judgment, along with an accompanying 

Declaration. (Doc. 20.) 

 Plaintiff moves pursuant to Local Rule of Civil Procedure 7.2(g)(1) for the Court 

to reconsider its May 15 Order and moves pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 

59(e) and 60(b)(1) for the Court to set aside the judgment entered the same date. 

Generally, motions for reconsideration are appropriate only if: 1) the movant presents 

newly discovered evidence; 2) the Court committed clear error or the initial decision was 

manifestly unjust; or 3) an intervening change in controlling law has occurred. School 

Dist. No. 1J, Multnomah County, Oregon v. AcandS, Inc., 5 F.3d 1255, 1263 (9th Cir. 

1993). A party should not file a motion to reconsider to ask a court “to rethink what the 

court had already thought through, rightly or wrongly.” Above the Belt, Inc. v. Mel 

Bohannon Roofing, Inc., 99 F.R.D. 99, 101 (E.D. Va. 1983). “No motion for 

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reconsideration shall repeat in any manner any oral or written argument made in support 

of or in opposition to the original motion.” Motorola, Inc. v. J.B. Rodgers Mech. 

Contractors, Inc., 215 F.R.D. 581, 586 (D. Ariz. 2003); see also L.R.Civ.P. 7.2(g)(1). 

The Court ordinarily will deny a “motion for reconsideration of an Order absent a 

showing of manifest error or a showing of new facts or legal authority that could not have 

been brought to its attention earlier with reasonable diligence.” L.R.Civ.P. 7.2(g)(1). 

Plaintiff does not point to newly discovered facts or argue that a change in 

controlling legal authority has occurred. Rather, Plaintiff argues that the Court 

manifestly erred in dismissing her ADA claim for lack of standing. 

 In its May 15 Order, the Court found that Plaintiff lacked Article III standing to 

pursue a claim for ADA discrimination because the momentary delay she suffered in 

gaining access to the hospital with Peaches, her service dog, did not constitute a denial of 

public accommodations. The Court relied in part on Skaff v. Meridien N. Am. Beverly 

Hills, LLC, 506 F.3d 832 (9th Cir. 2007) in reaching its decision. 

 Plaintiff confirms in her Declaration accompanying the Motion for 

Reconsideration that her interaction with the security guard and, later, his supervisor, 

caused her only a forty-minute delay in reaching her mother’s hospital room with 

Peaches. (Doc. 20-1 ¶14.) Plaintiff does not cite to any cases holding that a forty-minute 

delay in access constitutes a constructive denial of public accommodation. And she 

attempts to distinguish Skaff because the plaintiff in that case had a physical, rather than a 

mental, disability, but the Court finds no reason to distinguish Skaff on that basis. 

 Basically, Plaintiff would like the Court to re-think its earlier analysis. Because 

Plaintiff does not argue a change in controlling precedent and because the Court finds 

that it did manifestly err in holding that Plaintiff lacked Article III standing to bring a 

claim that she was denied public accommodation, the Court will not reconsider that 

holding. 

 In addition to finding that Plaintiff’s momentary delay in reaching her mother’s 

hospital room with Peaches did not constitute a denial of public accommodation, the 

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Court found that, even if the brief delay somehow did constitute a denial of 

accommodation, Plaintiff did not have standing to sue for injunctive relief. To establish 

standing to pursue injunctive relief, Plaintiff must demonstrate a “real and immediate 

threat of repeated injury” in the future. Chapman v. Pier 1 (U.S.) Inc. ̧ 631 F.3d 939, 946 

(9th Cir. 2011)(internal citations omitted). And it is the reality of the threat of repeated 

injury that is relevant to standing, not Plaintiff’s subjective apprehensions. City of Los 

Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 107 n.8 (1983). 

 Plaintiff argues that the Court incorrectly read facts into her Complaint when the 

Court reached its conclusion regarding her standing to sue for injunctive relief based on a 

real and immediate threat of repeated injury. The Court will grant Plaintiff’s Motion for 

Reconsideration to the limited extent necessary to correct the Court’s earlier mistaken 

assumptions. 

 In its May 15 Order, the Court stated, “According to her own Complaint, Plaintiff 

returned to the hospital without incident on several occasions during the days after the 

encounter with the security guard. She never had another issue. Any subjective fears 

about returning to the hospital are belied by the objective reality. Plaintiff’s 

unsubstantiated, subjective fear that she might, at some point in the future, have another 

problem bringing Peaches to Defendant hospital does not confer standing to pursue 

injunctive relief.” (Doc. pp. 7-8.) Plaintiff correctly points out that while the Complaint 

alleges she returned to the hospital on several occasions to visit her mother after the 

incident with the security guard, the Complaint does not allege that Plaintiff brought 

Peaches with her on those subsequent visits. The Court incorrectly presumed that 

Plaintiff brought Peaches with her on her return visits to the hospital based on a mistaken 

assumption that Plaintiff needed and therefore always brought Peaches with her when 

visiting public accommodations. To the extent the May 15 Order indicates that Plaintiff 

brought Peaches with her to the hospital several times after the security-guard incident 

without problem, the Court hereby corrects that mistake. 

 But Plaintiff admits in her Declaration that she did return to the hospital with 

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Peaches for a brief visit, after the incident with the security guard, without encountering a 

problem. (Doc. 20-1 ¶16.) The Court would not have reached a different conclusion 

regarding Plaintiff’s standing to pursue injunctive relief if the Court had known that 

Plaintiff brought Peaches with her on only one subsequent visit, versus three subsequent 

visits. Plaintiff’s ability, after the incident with the security guard, to enter the hospital 

without being asked to register Peaches belies her subjective fears that she will again 

encounter a problem with bringing Peaches to the hospital. 

 Moreover, the Court’s holding regarding Plaintiff’s standing to pursue injunctive 

relief was in addition to the Court’s holding that Plaintiff did not suffer an injury 

sufficient to confer Article III standing to pursue an ADA discrimination claim. Even if 

the Court had found that Plaintiff sufficiently alleged a real and immediate threat that she 

would again be asked to register Peaches before entering the hospital, the Court still 

would have held that Plaintiff lacked standing to pursue her ADA claim because the 

forty-minute delay she experienced in reaching her mother’s room with Peaches did not 

constitute a denial of public accommodation. The Court would have dismissed Plaintiff’s 

ADA claim for lack of jurisdiction on that basis alone. The Court therefore will not 

reverse its earlier grant of Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss and will not set aside the 

subsequent judgment for Defendants. 

 Accordingly, 

IT IS ORDERED Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Reconsideration (Doc. 20) to 

the limited extent set forth above, but Denying all relief requested by Plaintiff. 

 Dated this 8th day of June, 2012. 

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