UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT CHRIS LANGER, No. 21-55183 Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. v. 3:18-cv-00195- BEN-AHG MILAN KISER, in individual and representative capacity as trustee of the Milan and Diana Kiser Revocable OPINION Trust dated August 19, 2003; DIANA KISER, in individual and representative capacity as trustee of the Milan and Diana Kiser Revocable Trust dated August 19, 2003, Defendants-Appellees, and FRANK P. ROFAIL; DAVID MATTHEW TAYLOR; DOES, 1-10, Defendants.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Roger T. Benitez, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 18, 2022 San Francisco, California 2 LANGER V. KISER

Filed January 23, 2023 Before: William A. Fletcher, Ronald M. Gould, and Daniel P. Collins, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Gould; Dissent by Judge Collins

SUMMARY *

Americans with Disabilities Act

The panel reversed the district court’s judgment, after a bench trial, in favor of defendants Milan and Diana Kiser and vacated the district court’s award of costs in an action brought by Chris Langer under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Title III prohibits places of public accommodation from discriminating against people on the basis of disability, and the ADA Accessibility Guidelines require parking lots of a certain size to have van-accessible spaces with access aisles. The Kisers rented their property to commercial tenants. Langer tried to visit two businesses on the property, the Gour Maine Lobster (the “Lobster Shop”) and the 1 Stop Smoke Shop. One of the Kisers’ tenants, David Taylor, owned the Lobster Shop. Taylor’s lease assigned him a space in the parking lot on the property for his personal * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. LANGER V. KISER 3

use. Taylor placed a “Lobster Shop Parking Sign” near his assigned space. The Kisers asked Taylor to remove the sign, but he did not do so. Because the parking lot did not have a van-accessible parking space, Langer could not access either business when he visited the property. First, the panel held that Langer had Article III standing to bring his claim for injunctive relief under Title III of the ADA. The panel held that, to establish standing, a plaintiff suing a place of public accommodation must show actual knowledge of an access barrier or ADA violation and must show a sufficient likelihood of injury in the future. The panel also held that so-called “serial litigants” can have tester standing to sue for Title III violations because a plaintiff’s motive for going to a place of public accommodation is irrelevant to standing. Thus, the fact that Langer was a serial litigant had no place in the panel’s standing analysis. His testimony at trial, however, was relevant to the standing inquiry because he was required to demonstrate an intent to return to the Lobster Shop or current deterrence from returning, and thus a likelihood of injury in the future. The panel rejected the district court’s adverse credibility determination regarding Langer’s trial testimony because the court relied on his motivation for going to the Lobster Shop and his ADA litigation history. The panel held that Langer met his burden to establish standing because he demonstrated that he was currently deterred from patronizing the Lobster Shop because of its inaccessibility and that he intended to return as a customer once the store provided