Kulas

dissenting.

Attorney’s fees are awarded against a civil rights plaintiff only if the plaintiffs action is frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation. Christiansburg Garment Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Comm’n, 434 U.S. 412, 421 , 98 S.Ct. 694 , 54 L.Ed.2d 648 (1978). This standard is applied with special force when the plaintiff is proceeding pro se and may not be able to recognize the “subtle factual or legal deficiencies in his claims.” Hughes v. Rowe, 449 U.S. 5, 15 , 101 S.Ct. 173 , 66 L.Ed.2d 163 (1980). A district court should consider the financial resources of the plaintiff in awarding attorney’s fees and may not advance the deterrent goal of attorney’s fees at the cost of subjecting the plaintiff to financial ruin. Miller v. L.A. *32 County Bd. of Educ., 827 F.2d 617, 621 (9th Cir.1987). Kulas was an indigent plaintiff proceeding pro se in a civil rights action. The award of attorney’s fees was improper.

*31 MEMORANDUM ***

1. In civil rights claims brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act, attorney’s fees can be granted to prevailing defendants only in “exceptional cases when the action is unreasonable, frivolous, meritless, or without foundation, or when the plaintiff continues to litigate after it clearly becomes so.” Herb Hallman Chevrolet, Inc., v. Nash-Holmes, 169 F.3d 636, 645 (9th Cir.1999); see also 42 U.S.C. § 12205 ; Brown v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 246 F.3d 1182, 1190 (9th Cir.2001). The district court was within its discretion in determining that Kulas’s claims — filed within one month of nearly identical state court claims and a separate, nearly identical federal lawsuit — were “baseless, meritless, and frivolous.”

The district court properly considered Kulas’s ability, as a pro se plaintiff, to “recognize the objective merit (or lack of merit) of [his] claim.” Miller v. Los Angeles County Bd. of Educ., 827 F.2d 617, 620 (9th Cir.1987). After finding that Kulas “has represented himself in approximately 19 lawsuits filed in the District of Arizona alone ... [and] has represented himself before the Ninth Circuit more than 20 times, with some success,” the…