Sandra Edmonds v. Barchester California, Lp

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
SANDRA EDMONDS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
BARCHESTER CALIFORNIA, LP,
Defendant-Appellee,
and
DOES,
Defendant.
No. 22-55465
D.C. No.
2:21-cv-00261-RGK-SK
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Central District of California
R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted January 13, 2023
Pasadena, California
Before: WATFORD, FRIEDLAND, and BENNETT, Circuit Judges.
Dissent by Judge FRIEDLAND.
Plaintiff-Appellant Sandra Edmonds sued Barchester California, LP
(“Barchester”), asserting that various architectural barriers on its property
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
JAN 25 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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(“Property”) violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et
seq. (“ADA”). Following a bench trial, the district court entered judgment for
Barchester. We affirm.
The district court held that Edmonds failed to establish standing because the
only evidence of her deterrence from visiting the Property came from her
testimony, and the court did not find this testimony credible. See Chapman v. Pier
1 Imps. (U.S.) Inc., 631 F.3d 939, 949 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc). We review the
district court’s standing determination de novo and review its underlying factual
findings for clear error. Am.-Arab Anti-Discrimination Comm. v. Thornburgh, 970
F.2d 501, 506 (9th Cir. 1991). Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a),
credibility determinations “demand[] even greater deference to the trial court’s
findings; for only the trial judge can be aware of the variations in demeanor and
tone of voice that bear so heavily on the listener’s understanding of and belief in
what is said.” Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 575 (1985).
The district judge determined that Edmonds’s testimony was not credible
because she was vague in describing her disability and the barriers she allegedly
encountered; she made unresponsive, unsolicited, and disruptive remarks; and she
was combative while testifying. Although it is possible that there were
justifications for Edmonds’s uncooperative demeanor, it is also possible that her
demeanor, her vague descriptions of barriers not documented anywhere else, and

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the other matters identified by the district court caused legitimate problems with
her testimony that permissibly led the district judge to disbelieve her. With only
the trial transcript before us, we cannot evaluate how Edmonds’s “variations in
demeanor and tone” might have affected the district judge’s “understanding of and
belief in what [wa]s said.” Id. Given Rule 52(a)’s demand of heightened
deference to the trial court’s determinations regarding credibility, we affirm the
determination that Edmonds was not credible.
The only evidence of Edmonds’s deterrence from visiting the Property came
from her testimony. Because the district court did not clearly err in deeming her
testimony not credible, we affirm its holding that Edmonds lacked standing. See
Chapman, 631 F.3d at 949. We therefore do not reach Edmonds’s argument that
the district court erred in failing to consider her allegations regarding the weather
strip.
AFFIRMED.

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Edmonds v. Barchester, No. 22-55465
FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
The district court’s conclusion that Edmonds’s testimony was vague is
unsupported by the record, and its other reasons for deeming her not credible are
unrelated to truthfulness and thus seem illogical. I would remand for the district
court to either better explain why it found Edmonds not credible or to treat her
testimony as credible and reconsider the merits of her claims in light of that
testimony.
Although the district court criticized Edmonds for being vague in her
testimony about her disability and the barriers she encountered, the trial transcript
indicates that she was in fact clear. She explained that her disability affects her
knees, lower back, and hips, causing her severe arthritis and chronic pain. She
explained that because of her pain and impaired mobility, she must move slowly.
Edmonds was similarly specific when describing the barriers she encountered at
the Property. She explained that uneven pavement made it difficult for her to
maneuver her walker because its wheels caught on the pavement. She further
testified that she had difficulty getting out of her own car because other cars were
parked too close to the accessible parking space; she hypothesized that these
parking problems occurred because of vandalism obscuring the accessible parking
sign. The fact that Edmonds testified that she did not encounter difficulties with
the weather strip one month before her first problematic visit to the Property did
FILED
JAN 25 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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not render her description of her disability or that alleged barrier vague, given her
testimony that the effects of her disability vary depending on the day and that she
was in pain during her first problematic visit to the Property.
The fact that Edmonds spoke out of turn is irrelevant to her credibility. It is
true that at multiple points throughout her testimony, she made statements that
indicated a lack of familiarity with courtroom procedure and the formal nature of
direct and cross examination. Yet a litigant’s lack of familiarity with the legal
system should not undermine her credibility. To hold otherwise would risk
prejudicing litigants with limited resources or sophistication.
Finally, although the record indicates that Edmonds did appear combative at
points during the trial, she seems to have been justifiably frustrated with
Barchester’s counsel for photographing her without her permission as she
navigated barriers at the courthouse―barriers that, as she pointed out, she had no
choice but to navigate―in an apparent attempt to suggest that she was fabricating
her disability. Had the district court held that it did not believe that Edmonds was
disabled, her combativeness here might have been understood as excessive
defensiveness that called into question the veracity of her disability. But the
district court did not question whether Edmonds was disabled; rather, it doubted
whether she encountered the barriers she alleged.

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Because the district court’s explanation for its adverse credibility
determination is unsupported by the record, I would vacate and remand for the
district court to provide a more fulsome explanation for its credibility
determination, or else to deem Edmonds credible and conduct further proceedings.

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