United States Reports/Volume 601/Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer/Opinion of the Court
Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court.
Deborah Laufer has sued hundreds of hotels whose websites failed to state whether they have rooms accessible to the disabled. As the sheer number of lawsuits suggests, she does not focus her efforts on hotels where she has any thought of staying, much less booking a room. Instead, Laufer systematically searches the web to find hotels that fail to provide accessibility information and sues to force compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), 104 Stat. 327, 42 U. S. C. § 12101 et seq. Ordinarily, the hotels settle her claims and pay her attorney’s fees. But some have resisted, arguing that Laufer is not injured by the absence of information about rooms she has no plans to reserve. Only plaintiffs who allege a concrete injury have standing to sue in federal court. Laufer, these hotels have argued, is suing to enforce the law rather than to remedy her own harms.
Laufer has singlehandedly generated a circuit split. The Second, Fifth, and Tenth Circuits have held that she lacks standing; the First, Fourth, and Eleventh Circuits have held that she has it. We took this case from the First Circuit to resolve the split. 50 F. 4th 259 (2022); 598 U. S. ––– (2023). Though Acheson Hotels, LLC, filed the petition, Laufer supported the grant.
After we granted review, the case took an unusual turn. In July, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland suspended Laufer’s lawyer, Tristan Gillespie, from the practice of law for defrauding hotels by lying in fee petitions and during settlement negotiations. See Order in In re Gillespie, No. 1:21–mc–14 (July 5, 2023), ECF Doc. 14. It based the suspension on a report finding that Gillespie demanded $10,000 in attorney’s fees per case even though he used “boilerplate complaints.” Report and Recommendation in No. 1:21–mc–14 (June 30, 2023), ECF Doc. 13, pp. 5, 26. In addition, Gillespie funneled six-figure sums to the father of Laufer’s grandchild for investigatory work that he never performed, raising the prospect that either Gillespie or Laufer (or both) got a cut of the money. Id., at 28, 30. Making matters still worse, the sanctions order against Gillespie also implicated Laufer’s former counsel of record before this Court, Thomas Bacon. Id., at 30–31.[1]
Following these revelations, Laufer voluntarily dismissed her pending suits with prejudice, including her complaint against Acheson in the District of Maine. See Notice of Voluntary Dismissal in No. 2:20–cv–00344 (July 20, 2023), ECF Doc. 45. She then filed a suggestion of mootness in this Court. At this point, Acheson had already filed its principal brief on the standing issue, and we deferred a decision on mootness until after oral argument.
Laufer does not argue that we must dismiss her suit for mootness. She acknowledges that we can address jurisdictional issues in any order we choose, see Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U. S. 422, 431 (2007), and so have authority to resolve the standing issue. But mootness is easy and standing is hard, Laufer says. She urges us to refrain from resolving a difficult question in a case that is otherwise over.
Acheson, on the other hand, stresses that the difficult standing issue is the reason we took this case. Though Laufer’s case is dead, the circuit split is very much alive. This Court has received briefs and heard oral argument. For efficiency’s sake, Acheson insists that we should settle the issue now rather than repeating the work later. Moreover, Acheson warns that if we dismiss this case for mootness, the standing issue might not come back anytime soon. While Laufer has disavowed the intention to file any more ADA tester suits, Tr. of Oral Arg. 70, others will file in the circuits that sided with her, and hotels will settle, regarding it as pointless to challenge circuit precedent in this Court. Why would any hotel take a case this far, Acheson asks, if the respondent can evade our review by abandoning a claim rather than risking a loss?
We are sensitive to Acheson’s concern about litigants manipulating the jurisdiction of this Court. We are not convinced, however, that Laufer abandoned her case in an effort to evade our review. She voluntarily dismissed her pending ADA cases after a lower court sanctioned her lawyer. She represented to this Court that she will not file any others. Laufer’s case against Acheson is moot, and we dismiss it on that ground. We emphasize, however, that we might exercise our discretion differently in a future case. *** The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950). Justice Jackson objects to this disposition, urging us to instead leave the First Circuit’s judgment in place. Post, at 16–20 (opinion concurring in judgment). Our Munsingwear practice is well settled. See, e. g., United States v. Microsoft Corp., 584 U. S. 236, 240 (2018) (per curiam); Great Western Sugar Co. v. Nelson, 442 U. S. 92, 93–94 (1979) (per curiam); Duke Power Co. v. Greenwood County, 299 U. S. 259, 267 (1936) (per curiam); see also S. Shapiro, K. Geller, T. Bishop, E. Hartnett, & D. Himmelfarb, Supreme Court Practice § 19.5 (11th ed. 2019). We decline Justice Jackson’s invitation to reconsider it.
- ↑ On November 14th, the Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded the suspension order, holding that the District Court gave Gillespie insufficient notice that it might sanction him not only for dishonesty to opposing counsel, but also for failing to communicate with his clients. In re Gillespie, No. 23–1819 (2023) (per curiam). Disciplinary proceedings remain pending in the District Court.