Opinion ID: 3062245
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Design Standard Requirements for “Spaces”

Text: We now turn to the Design Standards. Abercrombie argues that the district court erred by holding that the porch is a “space” required to be accessible under the Design Standards. Aplt. Br. 44. After holding the porch to be a “space,” the district court noted that “if nondisabled customers can get to a space, customers who use wheelchairs have to be able to get to that space as well.” Abercrombie & Fitch Co., 957 F. Supp. 2d at 1281. The 1991 and 2010 Standards contain identical definitions of “entrance” and “space”: Entrance. Any access point to a building or portion of a building or facility used for the purpose of entering. An entrance includes the approach walk, the vertical access leading to the entrance platform, the entrance platform itself, vestibules if provided, the entry door(s) or gate(s), and the hardware of the entry door(s) or gate(s). ... Space. A definable area, e.g., room, toilet room, hall, assembly area, entrance, storage room, alcove, courtyard, or lobby. 1991 Standard 3.5; see also 2010 Standard 106.5. The 1991 Standards define “Accessible Space” as a “[s]pace that complies with these guidelines.” 1991 Standard 3.5; see also 2010 Standard 106.5 (defining “Accessible” as “[a] site, building, facility or portion thereof that complies with this part.”). As we see it, whether the porch is a “space” is not the issue—given the 33 definition of “space” as any “definable area,” it is hard to envision what is not a “space.” Rather, the issue is whether the regulations in fact require that all “spaces” be accessible, as the Plaintiffs contend. Aplee. Br. 45-46; U.S. Br. 11. Because the 1991 Standards distinguish between a “space” and an “accessible space,” it seems that the regulations clearly anticipated that not all “spaces” would be accessible. The Plaintiffs take the use of “space” in the Design Standards to extremes. Their starting point is 1991 Standard 4.1.1. Aplee. Br. 46. This standard provides that “[a]ll areas of newly designed or newly constructed buildings and facilities required to be accessible by 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 . . . shall comply with these guidelines.” 1991 Standard 4.1.1(1) (emphasis added). Contrary to the Plaintiffs’ suggestion, Aplee. Br. 45-46, this standard does not say that “all areas” must be accessible, but rather that areas must be accessible when other standards require accessibility. So we must keep looking. Turning to the first standard listed, 4.1.2 provides that an accessible route “shall connect accessible buildings, accessible facilities, accessible elements, and accessible spaces that are on the same site.” 1991 Standard 4.1.2(2) (emphasis added). Similarly, 4.1.3 requires an accessible route connecting all “accessible building or facility entrances with all accessible spaces and elements within a building or facility.” 1991 Standards 4.1.3(1) (emphasis added). By their plain text, these standards do not require “spaces” to be accessible; rather, they assume that the mentioned space is already an 34 “accessible space,” i.e., that another standard requires it to “compl[y] with these guidelines.” 1991 Standard 3.5. Throughout the Design Standards, the term “space” is seldom used apart from the modifier “accessible.” See, e.g., 1991 Standard 4.3.2(2) (“At least one accessible route shall connect accessible . . . spaces.”); id. 4.3.10 (“Accessible routes serving any accessible spaces”); id. 4.5.1 (“Ground and floor surfaces along accessible routes and in accessible rooms and spaces”); id. 4.14.1 (“Entrances required to be accessible by 4.1 shall . . . be connected by an accessible route to all accessible spaces.”). The term “accessible space” is a placeholder, used throughout the standards to denote compliance with other standards regulating areas that fall under the expansive definition of “space” (e.g., those for toilet rooms (4.22), assembly areas (4.33), entrances (4.14), and storage rooms (4.25)). Simply put, the Plaintiffs cannot point to any standard stating that every “space” shall be an “accessible space.” The standards clearly indicate when something that qualifies as a “space” must be accessible, e.g., by stating that certain “entrances . . . must be accessible.” 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8)(a)(i). But there is no similar requirement for “spaces” generally. To defer to the DOJ’s position—the “Standards guarantee people with disabilities physical access to spaces,” U.S. Br. 14—“would be to permit the agency, under the guise of interpreting a regulation, to create de facto a new regulation.” Christensen v. 35 Harris Cnty., 529 U.S. 576, 588 (2000). The standards are not ambiguous: the expansive definition of “space” is not an independent accessibility requirement. It was error for the district court to require that the porch be accessible because it is simply a “space.” 7 The dissent reaches the opposite conclusion. Our principal disagreement concerns whether the standards require “all areas” or “spaces” to be accessible outright unless expressly exempted. As discussed, this expansive reading is untenable given the standards’ repeated reference to “accessible spaces” and the specific standards regulating those areas that fall under the definition of “space.” See Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U.S. 374, 384 (1992) (“[I]t is a commonplace of statutory construction that the specific governs the general.”). Even so, the idea that the porch is a “lobby” or “customer lounge” is a weak one, as the porch is not a destination in itself but a means of passage into the store. 7 It was also error for the district court to impose accessibility requirements on the porch as a “space” because it contained “more than one use.” See Abercrombie & Fitch Co., 957 F. Supp. 2d at 1281. The district court apparently thought the porch was used as an “accessible space” because Abercrombie made it “available to individuals who do not require wheelchairs for mobility.” Id. A space is not an “accessible space” because it can be accessed by nondisabled persons; rather, it is an “accessible space” only if it “complies with [the] guidelines” for disabled access. 1991 Standard 3.5. The “use” envisioned by the standards refers to those “use[s] covered by a special application section,” e.g., “restaurants and cafeterias, medical care facilities, business and mercantile, libraries, accessible transient lodging, and transportation facilities.” 1991 Standard 4.1.1(2); see also 2010 Standard 201.2 (requiring multi-use spaces to comply with “the applicable requirements” for each use). The district court made no finding that the porch contained any of these special uses. 36 The standards provide no safety if an entity complies with the guidelines plainly regulating a contemplated feature (e.g., an “access point to a building or portion of a building or facility used for the purpose of entering,” i.e., an “entrance,” 1991 Standard 3.5) only later to be told that the feature is also a “space” that must be accessible unless fitting into a limited exemption. That is not the thrust of the highly detailed ADA regulations. C. Entrance Standards: “Majority of People” Requirement Abercrombie argues that the district court erred by holding that Hollister’s porches violated Design Standards regulating entrances. Specifically, it argues the court erred by finding noncompliance with 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8). Aplt. Br. 39. That standard provides that
must be accessible. At least one must be a ground floor entrance. Public entrances are any entrances that are not loading or service entrances. (ii) Accessible entrances must be provided in a number at least equivalent to the number of exists required by the applicable building/fire codes. (This paragraph does not require an increase in the total number of entrances planned for a facility.) (iii) An accessible entrance must be provided to each tenancy in a facility (for example, individual stores in a strip shopping center). One entrance may be considered as meeting more than one of the requirements in (a). Where feasible, accessible entrances shall be the entrances used by the majority of people visiting or working in the building. 37 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8). The district court held that, despite the fact that at least 50% of Hollister’s public entrances are accessible, the store violated 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8)(a) because it was “obvious” that a majority of people enter through the inaccessible porch. Abercrombie & Fitch Co., 835 F. Supp. 2d at 1082; see also Abercrombie & Fitch Co., 957 F. Supp. 2d at 1279. Abercrombie raises two arguments: (1) that the 2010 Standards eliminated the “majority of people” requirement, thus releasing Abercrombie from this burden; and (2) even if this requirement is effective, the Plaintiffs offered no evidence of how many people enter Hollister stores through the center porch compared to the two side entrances. Id. at 39. Abercrombie is correct on both points. As mentioned, the 1991 Standard required, among several other things, that “[a]t least 50% of all public entrances . . . must be accessible.” 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8)(a)(i). In 2010, the DOJ simplified its entrance standards, providing that “at least 60 percent of all public entrances shall [be accessible].” 2010 Standard 206.4.1. The 2010 Standard omits any reference to the 1991 “majority of people” language. In other words, while the 1991 Standard regulated how many and which entrances must be accessible (if feasible), the 2010 Standard simply regulates how many entrances must be accessible. The Plaintiffs’ only argument against this reading is that the DOJ intended the 2010 revision to have the “same 38 result” as the 1991 Standard. Aplee. Br. 51 (quoting 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, app B, at 835). However, the “same result” envisioned was the overall level of accessibility, not any continued requirement about which entrances must be accessible. See 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, app B, at 835. We thus agree with Abercrombie that, by abandoning the dual requirements of the 1991 Standard in favor of a straightforward percentage-of-entrances requirement, the 2010 Standard “reduce[d] the technical requirements” of the 1991 Standard. See 28 C.F.R. § 36.211(c). Therefore, Abercrombie need only comply with the simpler method of compliance—that a certain percentage of its public entrances be accessible. 8 See 2010 Standard 206.4.1. To be sure, the new method is simpler. Although the Plaintiffs sought summary judgment that the porch was used by a majority of people visiting or working in the store (and the district court viewed it as apparent), no evidence supports that proposition. We need not decide whether the porch designer’s intentions or actual empirical evidence concerning porch use by visitors or 8 We need not decide whether the percentage is 50% or 60%, as Abercrombie meets either. We will not consider the Plaintiffs’ argument to the contrary, Aplee. Br. 51 n.13, as it is raised for the first time on appeal, see Valdez v. Squier, 676 F.3d 935, 950 (10th Cir. 2012). In any event, their argument—that the porch actually constitutes two entrance “doors”—fails to take into account that the standards regulate the number of “entrances,” see 1991 Standard 4.1.3(8)(a)(i); 2010 Standard 206.4.1, and that one “entrance” may be made up of more than one “entry door(s),” see 1991 Standard 3.5. 39 employees would have been necessary to create a triable issue. 9 Given three sideby-side entrances, logic alone will not suffice. The Plaintiffs assert that the porch was intended to be used by the majority of people. Aplee. Br. 50. Abercrombie maintains that it is just as likely that the majority of people prefer a more direct route (all entrances have the same terminus) rather than ascending and descending the porch. See III Aplt. App. 728. It is an open question, and one which we do not resolve. 10 Accordingly, we hold that each of the district court’s grounds for awarding the Plaintiffs summary judgment are unsupportable. It was error to impose liability on the design of Hollister stores based on “overarching aims” of the ADA. It was also error to impose liability based on the holding that the porch as 9 The regulatory guidance does not mention the “majority of people” provision, see 28 C.F.R. pt. 36, app. C, at 929 (guidance to 4.1.3(8)), nor does the analysis and commentary to the 2010 standards, see 28 C.F.R. pt. 36 app. B, at 822-23 (analysis of “Public Entrances”). No published case has ever imposed ADA liability on a public accommodation for violating the “majority of people” component of 4.1.3(8)(a). 10 The dissent offers that the Plaintiffs presented “deposition testimony, declarations, photographic evidence, and architectural drawings that all support a reasonable inference that a majority of people use the porch entrance.” Responding to a summary judgment motion, Plaintiffs had the burden of providing significantly probative evidence establishing an essential element of their case. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23 (1986). The Plaintiffs’ summary judgment evidence demonstrates nothing more than the porch’s existence positioned between two nearby doors. We simply do not know about utilization of the various entrances. Regardless, this question is now irrelevant, as we hold that the 2010 Standards effectively eliminated the additional majorityof-people requirement in the 1991 Standards. 40 a “space” must be accessible. Finally, it was error to hold that the porch must be accessible because it is the entrance used by a “majority of people.” We AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Abercrombie’s summary judgment motion. We AFFIRM the district court’s certification of the class. However, we REVERSE the district court’s partial grant, and later full grant of summary judgment to the Plaintiffs, and we VACATE the court’s permanent injunction. We REMAND this case for proceedings consistent with this opinion. All pending motions are DENIED. 41 No. 13-1377, Colo. Cross-Disability Coalition v. Abercrombie & Fitch