Plaintiff Theresa Brooke is a woman with disabilities who uses a wheelchair. Along with her husband, she frequents California hotels to test their compliance with disability access laws. On one such testing trip in August 2023, Brooke and her husband visited the Ramada by Wyndham Burbank Airport, a hotel in Burbank, California. When they arrived, however, architectural barriers allegedly deterred Brooke from entering.

Brooke sued the hotel’s owner, Defendant Tsay JBR, LLC, asserting violations of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq., and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 51 et seq. (West 2025).

The California The Unruh Act similarly creates a private right of action for people with disabilities, along with other enumerated groups, who are denied “full and equal” access to California businesses. See Cal. Civ. Code § 51(b). As part of those protections, the Unruh Act provides that any violation of the ADA is also a violation of its provisions. See id. § 51(f).

Although private parties can obtain only injunctive relief under the ADA, they can recover actual and statutory damages under the Unruh Act. Id. § 52(a); see Arroyo v. Rosas, 19 F.4th 1202, 1206 (9th Cir. 2021) (explaining that the Unruh Act effectively creates a state-law “damages remedy that is not available under the ADA”).

Accordingly, Brooke sought injunctive relief under the ADA, statutory damages under the Unruh Act, and declaratory relief and attorney’s fees under both.

The district court granted in part and denied in part a motion for summary judgment brought by Brooke. The court concluded that Tsay JBR had violated the ADA because the hotel’s passenger loading zone – an area for vehicle pickup and drop-off – lacked an access aisle for disabled guests. As a remedy, the court ordered Tsay JBR to paint a blue access aisle in front of the loading zone.

Because Brooke established an ADA violation, she also necessarily established an Unruh Act violation. But not all Unruh Act violations automatically entitle a plaintiff to statutory damages. When a violation is construction-related, the Unruh Act only permits statutory damages if the plaintiff personally encountered the violation or was deterred by it. Id. § 55.56(a)–(b). The district court determined that Brooke had not established that fact on summary judgment.

With only that factual issue left, the court converted the scheduled jury trial to a bench trial, concluding that the jury- trial right did not attach to claims for statutory damages under section 52(a) of the Unruh Act.

Tsay JBR petitioned the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for a writ of mandamus, asking it to direct the district court to conduct a jury trial on the issue of Brooke’s entitlement to statutory damages. The panel held that the Seventh Amendment entitles parties in federal court to a jury trial on a claim for statutory damages under § 52(a) of the Unruh Act in the published case of Tsay JBR LLC v United States District Court for the Central District of California – 24-5234 (May 2025).

The Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that in “[s]uits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” In this case the Court of Appeals considered whether a defendant in an action for statutory damages under section 52(a) of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act is entitled to a jury trial.

“So long as a case involves a legal claim, the right to a jury trial attaches, even if the case also seeks equitable relief. See Curtis v. Loether, 415 U.S. 189, 196 n.11 (1974) (“The [jury-trial] right cannot be abridged by characterizing the legal claim as ‘incidental’ to the equitable relief sought.”); Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U.S. 469, 473 n.8 (1962).”

“The statutory damages in section 52(a) of the Unruh Act are thus a legal remedy. Because both the historical analog and the nature of the remedy reveal that Brooke’s claim is legal, the Court of Appeals held that the Seventh Amendment entitles parties in federal court to a jury trial on a claim for statutory damages under section 52(a) of the Unruh Act.”