Opinion
CV-21-01608-PHX-DLR
10-11-2022
Luca Branum, Plaintiff, v. Fry's Food Stores, Defendant.
ORDER
DOUGLAS L. RAYES, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
On June 6, 2022, the Court dismissed Plaintiff's complaint for failure to state a claim to relief. (Doc. 25.) As the Court explained:
Plaintiff's complaint alleges, in its entirety: “Business tried to prevent, entry, service on basis of disability, medical condition preventing us from wearing masks.” (Doc. 1-3 at 12.) The complaint makes no mention of the kind of medical condition that allegedly prevented mask wearing or whether the business actually denied entry or service, or even the date on which the incident(s) occurred. This lacks sufficient factual matter to place Defendant on notice of the alleged wrongdoing.(Id.) Now at issue is Plaintiff's motion for leave to amend and to seal/redact personal information. (Doc. 26.) The motion will be denied.
First, the Court denies Plaintiff's motion to seal/redact the proposed amended complaint. The public has a right to access judicial records. San Jose Mercury News, Inc. v. U.S. Dist. Court-N. Dist. (San Jose), 187 F.3d 1096, 1100, 1101 (9th Cir. 1999). The Court therefore begins “with a strong presumption in favor of access to court records.” Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1135 (9th Cir. 2003). A party seeking to overcome this presumption and file a judicial record under seal generally must provide a compelling reason for doing so. Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1096 (9th Cir. 2016). Plaintiff does not explain what personal information in the proposed amended complaint requires redaction, nor does Plaintiff offer a compelling reason for sealing or redacting the document.
Second, the Court denies Plaintiff's motion for leave to amend because the proposed amendments are futile. In her proposed amended complaint, Plaintiff accuses Fry's Food Stores (“Fry's”) of discriminating against her on the basis of disability by denying her entry to a Fry's location on July 22, 2020, December 11, 2020, and February 7, 2021, because she refused to wear a face mask. According to the proposed amended complaint, her refusal to wear a face mask was not the result of her own disability. Instead, she claims that her son's brain injury, hearing impairment, and fainting disorder require him to be able to see his parents' faces for effective communication. But the proposed amended complaint also notes that Fry's would have allowed her to enter if she would have worn a face shield. The proposed amended complaint fails to explain why Plaintiff's son's condition precluded her from wearing a clear face shield. All Plaintiff says is that face shields are not as effective at masks at preventing the spread of COVID-19. But this explanation is nonsensical because Plaintiff's preferred accommodation was to enter the store without any protection at all. If she was willing to enter the store without any protection, then she should not have had any objection to entering the store with some protection. She therefore does not state a plausible claim of discrimination or retaliation on the basis of disability. See Giles v. Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc., No.: 20-cv-2131-GPC-JLB, 2021 WL 2072379, at *4 (S.D. Cal. May 24, 2021) (“Plaintiff does not claim that she cannot wear a face shield or that a health professional has certified that she cannot wear a face shield. Her allegations regarding her disability fail to account for the modification that permitted her to shop with a face shield. Accordingly, her allegations do not plausibly allege that Defendant maintained a policy that prevented her from shopping at Sprouts Farmers Market given her claimed disability.”)
IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff's motion to amend (Doc. 26) is DENIED and this matter is hereby DISMISSED. The Clerk is directed to close this case.