Opinion ID: 673802
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Claims for Prospective Relief

Text: 15 Since the tester plaintiffs have no cause of action for damages under either Sec. 1981 or Title VII, their federal claims reduce to their request for injunctive or declaratory relief. Yet under City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), they lack standing to seek such prospective relief, for they have not made sufficient allegations that they are threatened with any future illegality. 16 The plaintiff in Lyons alleged that Los Angeles police, without provocation, had subjected him to a chokehold that had knocked him unconscious and injured his larynx. In addition to damages, he sought an injunction barring the police from applying such chokeholds in the future. But the Supreme Court held that he had no standing to seek injunctive relief. Despite his allegations of past injury, his standing to seek the injunction depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers. Id. at 105, 103 S.Ct. at 1667 (emphasis added). While conceding the possibility that there will be certain instances in which strangleholds will be illegally applied and injury ... unconstitutionally inflicted upon the victim, the Court thought it no more than speculation to assert ... that Lyons himself will again be involved in one of those unfortunate instances. Id. at 108, 103 S.Ct. at 1668. In short, while Lyons could maintain a suit for damages, he could not maintain his suit for an injunction because he has made no showing that he is realistically threatened by a repetition of his experience. Id. at 109, 103 S.Ct. at 1669. The same rationale, we have observed, would also have kept him from bringing a suit for declaratory relief. Haase v. Sessions, 835 F.2d 902, 911 (D.C.Cir.1987); see also, e.g., Golden v. Zwickler, 394 U.S. 103, 108-10, 89 S.Ct. 956, 959-61, 22 L.Ed.2d 113 (1969); City of Houston v. Department of Housing & Urban Dev't, 24 F.3d 1421, 1429 n. 6 (D.C.Cir.1994). 17 Here, the tester plaintiffs made several different references to future injury in their complaint. In general, however, these future injuries spring entirely from BMC's past conduct. See, e.g., Second Amended Complaint p 44 (suggesting that testers will continue to feel embarrassment and humiliation over their treatment during the tests); id. p 7. To pursue an injunction or a declaratory judgment, the tester plaintiffs must allege a likelihood of future violations of their rights by BMC, not simply future effects from past violations. Lyons is directly on point, for the Court there denied standing despite the plaintiff's allegation that he continued to fear that he would suffer a fatal chokehold in a future encounter with the police. The emotional consequences of a prior act, the Court observed, simply are not a sufficient basis for an injunction absent a real and immediate threat of future injury by the defendant. Lyons, 461 U.S. at 107 n. 8, 103 S.Ct. at 1668 n. 8. 18 Only once in their complaint do the tester plaintiffs even come close to alleging that they will suffer any future illegality at BMC's hands. In their Sec. 1981 count (though not in their Title VII count), they assert that [u]nless restrained by this Court, defendants will continue to deny, on the basis of race, said plaintiffs and third parties who may be unaware of the defendants' discriminatory conduct[ ] the right to make and enforce contracts for employment. Second Amended Complaint p 50. The reference to third parties, of course, does not help the tester plaintiffs establish standing; to satisfy the requirements of Article III, they must allege that they themselves are likely to suffer future injury. See Lyons, 461 U.S. at 108-09, 103 S.Ct. at 1668-69. Nonetheless, the quoted passage constitutes the only conceivable support for the plaintiffs' argument that the complaint contains the requisite claims of future injuries, which they sort into two distinct types. 19 First, the plaintiffs assert standing on the basis of BMC's continuing failure to refer Mr. Demps or Mr. Tuckett for employment on account of their race. Appellees' Brief at 36. This allegation, however, does the tester plaintiffs no good; as we explained above, see supra part I.A.1.a., BMC's refusal to act on the testers' applications does not violate Sec. 1981. And even if we import the same allegation into the plaintiffs' Title VII count, the facts as alleged by the plaintiffs would not make out a continuing violation of Title VII either. The tester plaintiffs sought referrals from BMC solely on the basis of their fictitious credentials and their misrepresentations about their desire for jobs. Now that BMC is aware of the deception, it surely has no duty to continue to consider the testers for employment referrals. 20 The plaintiffs also claim that their complaint, fairly read, raises the possibility that as people entering the job market or as testers they will in the future seek job referrals from BMC. Appellees' Brief at 36. But nowhere does the complaint assert that the tester plaintiffs are likely ever to return to BMC seeking employment referrals, let alone that they will do so at any point in the reasonably near future. Cf. Lyons, 461 U.S. at 108, 103 S.Ct. at 1668-69; see also Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, --- U.S. ----, ----, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2138, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (rejecting standing for want of sufficiently imminent future injury). Even now, in fact, the plaintiffs do not suggest that there is any likelihood that the two testers will re-initiate contact with BMC; they refer only to the possibility of this event. That possibility seems remote indeed. Their usefulness as testers is minimal because they are now known to BMC, and indeed it does not appear from the materials before us that they are still employed as testers at all. Their adversarial relationship with BMC, moreover, as well as their established record as deceivers, make it highly implausible that they would ever return as bona fide job seekers. Cf.United Transp. Union v. ICC, 891 F.2d 908, 913 n. 8 (D.C.Cir.1989) (court may discredit incredible allegations). 21 The district court overlooked these problems on the theory that the plaintiffs themselves control whether they re-initiate contact with BMC. Mem.Op. at 7. But this fact does not excuse the plaintiffs from alleging that they plan to do so. To the contrary, the Supreme Court has categorically rejected the proposition that a plaintiff seeking prospective relief need assert a threat of imminent future injury only when the alleged harm depends upon 'the affirmative actions of third parties beyond a plaintiff's control' . See Defenders of Wildlife, --- U.S. at ---- n. 2, 112 S.Ct. at 2139 n. 2. 22 In any event, the plaintiffs simply do not control whether they will suffer any future injury, for they do not control whether BMC would discriminate against them in any future encounter. Suppose we could assume that the tester plaintiffs are likely to return to BMC in the reasonably near future. Indeed, for the sake of their Sec. 1981 claim (and possibly even their Title VII claim, see supra at 6 n. 1), suppose we could assume that they will do so as bona fide candidates for employment rather than as testers. They would still appear to be in much the same position as the plaintiff in Lyons: while he presumably could have initiated another encounter with the Los Angeles police, he could not control whether he would be subjected to a second illegal chokehold. 23 In Lyons, the Supreme Court stated that unless the plaintiff could allege that Los Angeles ordered or authorized its police officers to apply unprovoked chokeholds, he could establish an actual controversy in this case only by mak[ing] the incredible assertion ... that all police officers in Los Angeles always choke any citizen with whom they happen to have an encounter. Lyons, 461 U.S. at 105-06, 103 S.Ct. at 1667. This formulation may be hyperbolic; indeed, Lyons itself said that the plaintiff's standing to seek an injunction depended on whether he was likely to suffer future injury from the use of the chokeholds by police officers. Id. at 105, 103 S.Ct. at 1667 (emphasis added); see also International Union of Bricklayers & Allied Craftsmen v. Meese, 761 F.2d 798, 803 (D.C.Cir.1985) (adopting fairly probable as standard). But see Whitmore v. Arkansas, 495 U.S. 149, 158, 110 S.Ct. 1717, 1724-25, 109 L.Ed.2d 135 (1990) (indicating that plaintiff whose standing rests on threat of future injury must show that this injury is certainly impending); Defenders of Wildlife, --- U.S. at ---- n. 2, 112 S.Ct. at 2139 n. 2 (same); Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Espy, 23 F.3d 496, 500-01 (D.C.Cir.1994), (same). Whatever the exact standard for judging the likelihood of future injury, however, the tester plaintiffs here have said nothing to indicate that future violation of their rights is even remotely probable. Indeed, besides its oblique statement that BMC's treatment of the testers reflects a pattern, practice and policy of employment discrimination on the basis of race, the complaint does not even address the likelihood that BMC may discriminate against the individual plaintiffs in the future. 24 For all these reasons, the facts as alleged in the complaint do not come close to indicating that either tester will again be subjected to the alleged illegality. See Lyons, 461 U.S. at 109, 103 S.Ct. at 1669. The tester plaintiffs therefore lack standing to seek prospective relief.