U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued the order on April 22, directing Raglin to explain why the court should exercise jurisdiction over his claims under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the California Disabled Persons Act, the California Health and Safety Code, and negligence.
Raglin filed the complaint on April 8 against Defendants Amit C. Patel d/b/a Budget Inn, Sunsets Lakshmi LLC, and Does 1 to 10, alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and seeking damages under state law.
The order highlights California’s heightened pleading standards for construction-access claims, which require plaintiffs to file verified complaints detailing specific barriers encountered and the dates they occurred. Under California law, a "high-frequency litigant" is defined as a plaintiff who has filed 10 or more complaints alleging construction-related accessibility violations within the 12 months preceding the current filing.
The order requires Raglin and his counsel to provide declarations under penalty of perjury detailing the number of such claims filed by Raglin and the number of high-frequency litigant plaintiffs represented by his counsel in the preceding year.
Raglin must also identify the amount of statutory damages he seeks to recover and state the reason he was in the geographic area of the defendant’s business and why he desired to access it.
The judge warned that failure to timely or adequately respond to the order may result in the court declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c).
Raglin has 14 days of the order to file a response.