discussing race-discrimination cases and explaining that plaintiffs suffered injury when they “were admitted to a movie theater or racetrack clubhouse or gained access to a soda fountain, but, because of their race, were restricted to a segregated or otherwise substandard area”
How later courts described this case
- discussing race-discrimination cases and explaining that plaintiffs suffered injury when they “were admitted to a movie theater or racetrack clubhouse or gained access to a soda fountain, but, because of their race, were restricted to a segregated or otherwise substandard area”
- explaining plaintiffs had standing because they “adequately alleged they had suffered an ‘invasion of legally protected interests’ sufficient to afford them an interest in pursuing their action vigorously” (citation omitted)
- “With regard to the Unruh Civil Rights Act particularly, we recently explained that it must be construed liberally in order to carry out its purpose to ‘create and preserve a nondiscriminatory environment in California business establishments by ‘banishing’ or ‘eradicating’ arbitrary, invidious discrimination by such establishments.’ ”
- “It is for the Legislature (or the People through the initiative process) to determine whether to alter the statutory elements of proof to afford business establishments protection against abusive private legal actions and settlement tactics.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WERDEGAR, J., Concurring.
I fully agree with the majority’s analysis and conclusion. I write separately because I cannot join the majority’s *181 conjectural discussion (ante, at p. 179) of equitable defenses to hypothetical claims under the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civ. Code, § 52, subd. (a)). As the majority explains (ante, at p. 180), no such issue is before us. That nothing the majority says on the subject has any precedential force necessarily follows. (People v. Mendoza (2000) 23 Cal.4th 896, 915 [ 98 Cal.Rptr.2d 431 , 4 P.3d 265 ]; Hart v. Burnett (1860) 15 Cal. 530, 598-599 .)