Segalman v. Sw. Airlines Co.

895 F.3d 1219

Robert SEGALMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.SOUTHWEST AIRLINES COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 17-15196

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted March 14, 2018 San Francisco, California

Filed July 23, 2018

David C. Wakefield (argued), Law Offices of David C. Wakefield, San Diego, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rebekka R. Martorano (argued) and Timothy J. Ryan, The Ryan Law Group, Sacramento, California, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: Richard A. Paez and Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges, and Eric N. Vitaliano,^* District Judge.

PAEZ, Circuit Judge:

The Air Carrier Access Act of 1986 ("ACAA"), 49 U.S.C. § 41705, prohibits air carriers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of a physical or mental impairment. We must decide whether this prohibition is enforceable through an implied private cause of action. We hold that it is not.

I.¹

Robert Segalman has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair. In 2009 and 2010, Segalman’s wheelchair was repeatedly damaged while in the possession of Southwest Airlines Co. ("Southwest"). On one occasion, Southwest returned Segalman’s wheelchair to him without a seatbelt, which had been attached when Segalman left the wheelchair in Southwest’s care at the airport departure gate. Before Segalman could get an appointment to replace the seatbelt, he fell out of his wheelchair and broke his shin in two places, resulting in a four-day hospital stay. On another occasion, Southwest returned the wheelchair to Segalman with a broken armrest. On a third occasion, Southwest returned the wheelchair with damage to the joystick that rendered the wheelchair inoperative.

In July 2011, Segalman brought this action against Southwest and ten unidentified Southwest employees for damages and injunctive relief. He alleged negligence under California state law and a violation of the ACAA, which prohibits air carriers from "discriminat[ing] against an otherwise qualified individual" on the ground that the individual "has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities." 49 U.S.C. § 41705(a).² Segalman subsequently amended his complaint twice, withdrawing his ACAA claim and adding claims alleging California statutory violations. The district court dismissed Segalman’s Second Amended Complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), and we affirmed in part and reversed in part. Segalman v. Southwest Airlines Co. , 603 F. App'x 595, 597 (9th Cir. 2015).

On remand, Segalman amended his complaint a third time, reinstating his initial ACAA claim and realleging California statutory violations and negligence. Southwest moved to dismiss Segalman’s Third Amended Complaint except as to his negligence claim, and the district court granted the motion. With respect to the ACAA claim, the district court concluded that no implied private cause of action existed, and that even if it did, Segalman failed to allege that he exhausted his administrative remedies. In December 2016, pursuant to the parties’ stipulation, the district court dismissed Segalman’s remaining negligence claim with prejudice. The district court subsequently entered final judgment, and Segalman timely appealed the dismissal of his ACAA claim.

II.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo the district court’s dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), Flores v. County of Los Angeles , 758 F.3d 1154, 1158 (9th Cir. 2014), including the question whether a statute provides an implied private cause of action, Northstar Fin. Advisors, Inc. v. Schwab Invs. , 615 F.3d 1106, 1115 (9th Cir. 2010).

III.

Applying Alexander v. Sandoval , 532 U.S. 275, 121 S.Ct. 1511, 149 L.Ed.2d 517 (2001), we hold that the ACAA does not create an implied private cause of action.³ First, for context, we briefly review the shift in the Supreme Court’s case law addressing implied cause of action claims, and the corresponding change in our sister circuits’ decisions applying that case law to the ACAA. Second, we join the Second, Fifth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits in concluding that, in light of the ACAA’s statutory structure, Congress did not intend to create a private cause of action under the ACAA. Because we are not at liberty to recognize a private cause of action in the absence of such intent, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Segalman’s ACAA claim.

A.

As the Supreme Court’s approach to claims alleging an implied cause of action shifted in recent decades, so too did the decisions of our sister circuits addressing claims of ACAA violations. When Congress enacted the ACAA in 1986, the prevailing framework for evaluating whether a statute implied a private cause of action was the four-factor test set out in Cort v. Ash , 422 U.S. 66, 95 S.Ct. 2080, 45 L.Ed.2d 26 (1975). Under that framework, courts considered the following questions:

[1] [I]s the plaintiff one of the class for whose especial benefit the statute was enacted—that is, does the statute create a federal right in favor of the plaintiff?

[2] [I]s there any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create ... a [private] remedy or to deny one?

[3] [I]s it consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply ... a [private] remedy for the plaintiff?

[4] [I]s the cause of action one traditionally relegated to state law, in an area basically the concern of the States, so that it would be inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law?

Id. at 78 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

Within five years of the ACAA’s enactment, the Fifth and Eighth Circuits held that, under Cort , the ACAA creates an implied private cause of action. See Shinault v. American Airlines, Inc. , 936 F.2d 796, 800 (5th Cir. 1991), overruled by Stokes v. Southwest Airlines , 887 F.3d 199, 205 (5th Cir. 2018) ; Tallarico v. Trans World Airlines, Inc. , 881 F.2d 566, 570 (8th Cir. 1989). In Tallarico , the Eighth Circuit concluded that all four Cort factors weighed in favor of recognizing an implied private cause of action. 881 F.2d at 569–70. With respect to the second factor, legislative intent to create a private remedy—the absence of which, as we explain infra , is now determinative—the Eighth Circuit relied on a senate report. Id. According to that report, Congress enacted the ACAA in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States Department of Transportation v. Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA ), 477 U.S. 597, 106 S.Ct. 2705, 91 L.Ed.2d 494 (1986), which held that section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 applies only to those commercial airlines that receive direct federal subsidies, id. at 609, 106 S.Ct. 2705. S. Rep. No. 99-400, at 1–2 (1986), as reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2328, 2329. Based on the senate report and "the fact that the ACAA [wa]s patterned after the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which Act ha[d] been held to imply a private cause of action," the Eighth Circuit concluded that "Congress implicitly intended that handicapped persons would have an implied private cause of action to remedy perceived violations of the ACAA." Tallarico , 881 F.2d at 570 (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). Two years later, the Fifth Circuit agreed: "The legislative history of the ACAA indicates that Congress intended to provide a private cause of action under the ACAA and that cause of action would be consistent with the statutory scheme." Shinault , 936 F.2d at 800 (citing Tallarico , 881 F.2d at 569–70 ).⁴

That was before the Supreme Court’s decision in Sandoval . There, the Court "narrowed the framework for evaluating whether a statute implies a private cause of action." Gilstrap v. United Air Lines, Inc. , 709 F.3d 995, 1002 (9th Cir. 2013) ; see also Ziglar v. Abbasi , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S.Ct. 1843, 1855–56, 198 L.Ed.2d 290 (2017). In particular, Sandoval explained that courts are tasked with determining only whether Congress intended to create a private cause of action. See 532 U.S. at 286–91, 121 S.Ct. 1511. In addition, the Court clarified that the absence of the second Cort factor—i.e., an indication of legislative intent to create a private remedy—is dispositive:

The judicial task is to interpret the statute Congress has passed to determine whether it displays an intent to create not just a private right but also a private remedy. Statutory intent on this latter point is determinative. Without it, a cause of action does not exist and courts may not create one, no matter how desirable that might be as a policy matter, or how compatible with the statute.

Id. at 286–87, 121 S.Ct. 1511 (citations omitted).

Thus, in the wake of Sandoval , we evaluate whether an implied private cause of action exists under a statute by using ordinary tools of statutory interpretation, and we are not "constrained by the Cort framework." Logan v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n , 722 F.3d 1163, 1171 (9th Cir. 2013) ; see also, e.g. , In re Digimarc Corp. Derivative Litig. , 549 F.3d 1223, 1233 (9th Cir. 2008) ("Because the text and the structure of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act do not demonstrate an intent to create a private right of action under section 304, we need not delve into the first (federal right in plaintiff’s favor), third (general statutory purpose), and fourth (nature of the action) Cort factors."). Under this approach, "[w]e begin our search for congressional intent with the language and structure of the statute, and then look to legislative history only if the language is unclear, or if there is a clearly expressed contrary intention in the legislative history that may overcome the strong presumption that the statutory language represents congressional intent." Logan , 722 F.3d at 1171 (citations omitted). Most relevant here, with respect to statutory structure, "[w]e ... look to see whether Congress designated a method of enforcement other than through private lawsuits, because ‘[t]he express provision of one method of enforcing a...