Osborne

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiffs John Flowers, Rebecca Osborne, Seth Messmer, and Kody Messmer (collectively, plaintiffs) allege that they visited a hotel owned and managed by defendants Bruce Yasmeh, Alfred Yasmeh, American Property Management, and INE Capital Holdings.1 Flowers is paraplegic and employs the use of a service dog. Osborne is Flowers’s wife, and the Messmers are Flowers’s stepsons. Plaintiffs allege that they visited defendants’ hotel, but management refused to rent them a room unless they first paid a non-refundable cleaning fee relating to the dog. They allege that the charge for the room was $80, and the nonrefundable cleaning fee was $300. Plaintiffs left the hotel without paying the fee or checking in as guests. Plaintiffs sued defendants in two separate lawsuits, one brought by Osborne and one brought by Flowers and the Messmers. In both actions, plaintiffs alleged violations of the Unruh Civil Rights Act (Civil Code, § 512) and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Defendants argued that plaintiffs’ pleadings could not establish standing due to a “bright-line rule” articulated in Surrey v. True Beginnings (2008) 168 Cal.App.4th 414, 416 (Surrey), that under…