Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_16-cv-03091/USCOURTS-azd-2_16-cv-03091-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities Foundation Incorporated
Plaintiff
CHCT Arizona LLC
Defendant

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WO NOT FOR PUBLICATION 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Advocates for Individuals with Disabilities 

Foundation Incorporated, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

CHCT Arizona LLC, 

Defendant. 

No. CV-16-03091-PHX-JJT

ORDER 

 At issue is Defendant’s Motion for Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Costs (Doc. 12), 

to which Plaintiff filed a Response in Opposition (Doc. 13) and Defendant filed a Reply 

(Doc. 14). For the reasons set forth below, the Court will grant in part and deny in part 

Defendant’s motion. 

 Plaintiff filed this action in state court on August 18, 2016, claiming violations of 

the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. (“ADA”) and its state 

counterpart, the Arizonans with Disabilities Act, A.R.S. § 41-1492 et seq. (“AzDA”). 

(Doc. 1, Ex A.) Defendant removed the matter to this Court on September 13, 2016, on 

grounds that the Court had federal subject matter jurisdiction over the ADA claim and 

pendent jurisdiction over the state AzDA claim. (Doc. 1 at 2.) 

 On September 20, 2016, Defendant moved to dismiss the Complaint for lack of 

jurisdiction and failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, citing lack of 

standing of the corporate Defendant. (Doc. 7). Defendant also filed a Notice of 

Certification of Conferral on that date, advising the Court that it had alerted Plaintiff to 

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infirmities with the Complaint and the standing issue. (Doc. 8.) Plaintiff filed no response 

to the Motion to Dismiss and, more than five weeks later, Defendant moved for summary 

disposition of the Motion to Dismiss. (Doc. 10.) Citing LRCiv. 7.2(i), the Court granted 

both motions and dismissed this matter for Plaintiff’s failure to prosecute. (Doc. 11.) 

 The ADA provides the Court discretion to award to a prevailing party reasonable 

attorneys’ fees and costs. 42 U.S.C. § 12205. The circumstances justifying such an award 

are narrow. A court must first find that “the plaintiff’s action was frivolous, unreasonable 

or without foundation.” Summers v. Teichert & Son, 127 F.3d 1150, 1154 (9th Cir. 1997). 

Such circumstances exist here. 

 Defendant’s Notice of Certification of Conferral sets forth the frivolity, 

unreasonableness, and lack of foundation of Plaintiff’s counsel’s actions. At the point 

Plaintiff brought this action, it had filed over 1000 nearly identical actions in Arizona 

state court within the span of just a few months, all alleging an ADA claim and a state 

AzDA claim against various small businesses operating in Arizona. Counsel for many 

defendants had raised the standing issue with counsel for Plaintiff, both as an absolute bar 

to bringing this action in any court, and specifically as a bar to bringing it in federal 

court—where Article III Constitutional provisions made the lack of standing clear. 

Counsel for Defendant here did the same. (Doc. 8, Ex. B.) In her contacts with Plaintiff, 

counsel for Defendant sought to minimize the waste of resources that would occur if she 

were forced to prepare and file a motion to dismiss on an obvious lack of standing in 

federal court by seeking voluntary dismissal of at least the ADA claim before her 

deadline to file any such motion. (Doc. 8, Ex. B.) Plaintiff declined to so dismiss the 

ADA claim, and on the deadline to answer or otherwise file a responsive pleading, 

Defendant filed a comprehensive motion to dismiss. 

 Were this an isolated instance of Plaintiff’s failure to act in such circumstances, 

the Court would be reluctant to consider a fee award. But, as indicated above, Plaintiff 

has filed over 1000 essentially boilerplate complaints all presenting similar standing 

issues. In the approximately 160 of those cases that were removed to this Court, it already 

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has sanctioned Plaintiff at least twice for similar conduct it expressly found to 

“demonstrate[] an attempt to increase the costs of litigation to maximize Defendants [’] 

desire to settle the suit due to the cost of defense.” Advocates for Individuals with 

Disabilities Found. Inc. v. Golden Rule Properties LLC, No. CV-16-02413-PHX-GMS, 

Doc. 28 at 2 (D. Ariz. October 13, 2016); see also Advocates for Individuals with 

Disabilities Foundation Inc. v. Sun West Dental Properties LLC, No. 16-CV-02416-

PHX-JJT, Doc. 29 at 3 (D. Ariz. October 13, 2016) (“The Court will find that it was, in 

fact, an abuse perpetrated by plaintiff’s counsel, not [new counsel] Mr. Broadbent, in 

giving inaccurate information deliberately which motivated actions that drove up the 

costs.”). 

 The Court finds that Plaintiff’s conduct in this case is a continuation of the pattern 

it identified above to drive up the costs of defending these cases even where there is no 

sustainable claim. Defendant clearly identified the infirmities in the Complaint to 

Plaintiff and clearly advised that Defendant’s counsel had to act by a date certain to 

protect its rights, unless Plaintiff voluntarily withdrew the infirm claim before that date. 

Plaintiff took no action. Thereafter, Defendant prepared and filed a comprehensive 

motion to dismiss. Plaintiff did not even respond. It failed to prosecute this matter. But its 

course of conduct drove up defense costs by over $13,000. In light of the pattern of 

conduct exhibited by Plaintiff, the Court concludes this action was frivolous, 

unreasonable, and unfounded. The Court having given Plaintiff notice of the issue and an 

opportunity to be heard (Docs. 11, 13), finds Plaintiff’s conduct here justifies an award of 

reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs under § 12205. The Court alternatively finds such an 

award is justified under its inherent powers or under 28 U.S.C. § 1927. Munoz v. Calif. 

Dept. of Corrections, 182 F.3d 926, 926 (9th Cir. 1999). 

 The Court concludes that the hourly rates for the attorneys representing Defendant 

in this matter are all reasonable and supported by market rates applicable to this 

representation. It finds that the number of hours billed was excessive, however. The hours 

expended in conducting the litigation by Ms. Story and Mr. LaPriore were reasonably 

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necessary to conduct the tasks as outlined in their detailed billing statement, all of which 

the Court finds were appropriate in the service of the client. But it does not find that the 

additional hours recorded by the Baker Donelson firm are reasonably assessed, 

particularly in light of counsel’s acknowledgement that Ms. Story and her associate 

“were primarily responsible for the day to day defense of this matter” and the Baker 

Donelson attorneys found it “necessary [] to stay involved to some degree” simply 

because of their relationship with the client—i.e., they were the referring law firm. The 

Court does not find, and does not mean to suggest, that the Baker Donelson attorneys 

provided no value to the client. But it does find in the microanalytical sense that certain 

tasks, such as approval by the Baker Donelson firm of the filings of an experienced 

partner in the Lewis Roca firm in a matter such as the instant one, are duplicative and 

unnecessary. And in the macroanalytical sense the Court finds that where, as here, 

“ordering Plaintiff to pay almost $15,000 in attorneys’ fees when a case has not been 

decided on the merits is an unreasonable penalty for work on two motions, one of which 

is a standard Request for Summary Ruling.” Aguado v. First Magnus Financial Corp., 

No. CV-09-1390-PHX-MHM, 2010 WL 2643555 at *3 (D. Ariz. June 30, 2010). 

 The Court will award Defendant the attorneys’ fees reasonably generated by local 

counsel—$8,734.50—and costs of $726.90. 

 Also before the Court is Plaintiff’s Motion for Remand, which was combined with 

its Response to Defendant’s attorney fee motion (Doc. 13). Plaintiff urges this Court to 

remand the AzDA claim, or both claims, because there is a possibility that the state court 

will find Plaintiff does have standing to bring one or both claims under the State of 

Arizona’s non-Article III standing analysis. (Doc. 13 at 1-2.) Had Plaintiff timely 

responded to the Motion to Dismiss, the Court would have considered its argument. 

Plaintiff did not respond to the motion to dismiss, however, at any point, and the Court 

granted the motion and dismissed more than three months ago pursuant to LRCiv. 7.2(i) 

and a finding that Plaintiff failed to prosecute its claims. The Court finds no basis to 

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overturn its earlier ruling. Plaintiff had its opportunities to respond on the merits and 

chose not to do so. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED granting in part and denying in part 

Defendant’s Motion for Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Costs (Doc. 12). Defendant is 

awarded $9461.40, comprised of $8734.50 in reasonable attorneys’ fees and $726.90 in 

costs. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED denying Plaintiff’s Motion to Remand (Doc. 13). 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Clerk of Court shall enter judgment 

accordingly. This case shall remain closed. 

 Dated this 10th day of February, 2017. 

Honorable John J. Tuchi

United States District Judge 

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