Daily Journal
By Itir Yakar
Daily Journal Staff Writer
March 8, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO - California may soon have to say goodbye to ladies night discounts at bars.

So warned the state Supreme Court Wednesday.

The seven justices of the high court heard oral arguments in a case appealed by several men who accused a Los Angeles club of gender discrimination for admitting female customers in at a discounted rate.

Lower courts threw out the case on a technicality, saying the men didn't air their complaint to the club before filing a lawsuit.

But the high court seemed deeply concerned Wednesday about condoning discrimination unless someone bothers to complain.

"Wouldn't the Court of Appeal ruling equally apply to someone who's the victim of alleged racial discrimination?" Chief Justice Ronald M. George asked.

George worried aloud that people asked to sit at the back of a bus or segregated at a restaurant because of their race would have to demand equal treatment before they could bring a discrimination case.

The chief justice also voiced concern that customers might not know who to complain to, for instance, if they are offended by segregated restrooms at a gas station.

But other justices said they are wary of encouraging attorneys to flood the courts with discrimination claims that could have been easily resolved short of a lawsuit.

"How is it in the public interest to permit a restaurant to be in violation of the law for this lengthy period of time and at the same time allow individual bounty hunters to line their coffers at the expense of the general public?" Justice Marvin R. Baxter asked. "People who are wronged do have an obligation to minimize their damages ... that's a judicial principal."

Baxter suggested that plaintiffs might repeatedly subject themselves to discrimination by the same business in order to rack up damages in a suit.

"I mean, talk about a shakedown of small businesses," he said.

That's when George lent the plaintiffs a helping hand, suggesting that the $4,000 demand sought for each day of alleged violation is not significant in the grand scheme of litigation.

"We've talked a lot about bounty hunters," George said. "Let's talk about the bounty itself. We're talking about fairly minimum amounts in the context of what it costs to go to court."

Baxter wanted to know whether an injured plaintiff has any limitations or an obligation to object to alleged illegal conduct.

"I guess my concern, and I think the Legislature's concern, is to stop discriminatory conduct as quickly as possible," Baxter told plaintiffs' attorney Alfred Rava.

Justice Joyce L. Kennard said the Legislature must address the concerns about opportunistic attorneys filing lawsuits to enrich themselves.

The case began in 2002 after lead plaintiff Marc Angelucci and several other men sued the Century Supper Club under the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Gender Tax Repeal Act after being charged $20 to get into the club.

Angelucci is a Glendale attorney and the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men, a civil rights organization that advocates gender equality for men and boys. He has filed lawsuits on behalf of men, including a class-action case by male victims of domestic violence accusing state agencies and state-funded domestic violence service providers of gender discrimination.

In Wednesday's case, the men argued that the club discriminated against them on several separate days because women were admitted either free of charge or charged only $15. One of the men said he was also subjected to a physical body search, while women patrons were not.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph R. Kalin threw out the case, concluding that the customers could not recover because they did not request to be treated the same as the women.

A unanimous panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld that ruling in 2005.

The Legislature approved of the equal-treatment-request requirement as outlined in previous case law, the panel held.

But on Wednesday, Kennard told the Century Supper Club's lawyer that the civil rights statute does not support his position.

"There's nothing in the statutory scheme [requiring] that one must first register a complaint," she told Steven L. Martin of Santa Monica.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Rava, got some tough questions as well, particularly from Justices Ming W. Chin and Carlos R. Moreno.

Chin followed up on a suggestion by Baxter that there may be legitimate reasons for a business such as a gym to limit attendance to women.

"Is [such a gym] the next object of your lawsuit?" Chin asked Rava.

Rava replied he had no such plans.

Moreno noted businesses often offer senior citizens discounts as well.

"Would our ruling in this case implicate those types of distinctions?"

Rava responded that the California Unruh Civil Rights Act does not cover age discrimination.

The state Supreme Court is expected to rule in Angelucci v. Century Supper Club, S136154, within 90 days.