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Acheson Hotels v. Deborah Laufer
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Acheson Hotels v. Laufer case as moot in an opinion delivered by Justice Amy Comey Barrett. Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred.
According to the opinion, Deborah Laufer sued hundreds of hotels whose websites failed to state whether they have rooms accessible to the disabled. Ordinarily, the hotels Laufer sued settled her claims and paid her attorney’s fees. However, some hotels resisted, arguing that Laufer was not injured by the absence of information about rooms she had no plans to reserve.
These hotels further argued that Laufer was suing to enforce the law rather than to remedy her own harms. According to the opinion, Laufer singlehandedly generated a circuit split. The Second, Fifth and 10th Circuits held Laufer lacked standing, while the First, Fourth and 11th Circuits held she had standing. The Supreme Court took the case from the First Circuit Court of Appeals to resolve the split.
However, the opinion noted that the case took an unusual turn after the Supreme Court granted review. Laufer’s lawyer, Tristan Gillespie, was suspended from the practice of law by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland for defrauding hotels by lying in fee petitions and during settlement negotiations. The opinion explained the report found Gillespie funneled six-figure sums to the father of Laufer’s grandchild for investigatory work that he never performed.
The sanctions order against Gillespie also implicated Laufer’s former counsel of record before the Supreme Court, Thomas Bacon.
According to the opinion, Laufer voluntarily dismissed her pending suits with prejudice, including the complaint against Acheson in the District of Maine. She then filed a suggestion of mootness before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court deferred the decision on mootness until after the oral argument.
The opinion noted that the Supreme Court was sensitive about Acheson’s concern of litigants manipulating jurisdiction, but it was not convinced that Laufer abandoned her case to evade review.
The Supreme Court ruled the case as moot and dismissed it on those grounds. The Supreme Court also vacated the judgment and remanded the case back to the First Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot, citing United States v. Munsingwear.
In Thomas’ concurring opinion, he opined on whether plaintiffs like Laufer have standing to bring the types of claims covered in the case. Thomas concluded Laufer lacked standing because her claim did not assert a violation of a right under the Americans with Disabilities Act or a violation of her rights. Justice Thomas noted that the ADA prohibits only discrimination based on disability, but it does not create a right to information. Thomas noted that ensuring and monitoring compliance with the law is a function of a government official, not a private person who does not assert a violation of her own rights.
Thomas also noted he wouldn’t dismiss the case as moot. He argued the Supreme Court should address Laufer’s standing, rather than resolve the case on mootness. Thomas asserted the question of whether Laufer has standing to bring her reservation rule claims is a recurring question that only the Supreme Court can definitively resolve.
Thomas respectfully concurred with the judgment because he would vacate and remand the case, with instructions to dismiss it for lack of standing.
Jackson objected to the disposition, and she urged the court to leave the First Circuit’s judgment in place but the Supreme Court declined to reconsider.
In Jackson’s concurring opinion, she agreed the case is moot and should be resolved on that basis, but she viewed that when mootness ends an appeal, the question of what to do with the lower court’s judgment should be addressed separately.
Jackson wrote that she believes courts should address mootness and vacatur separately, as mootness and vacatur involve different legal analyses. She continued, noting vacatur doesn’t and can’t automatically follow from mootness, at least in theory if not in practice.