Stiner v. Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. is a federal class action lawsuit accusing Brookdale Senior Living, the largest provider of assisted living for senior citizens and persons with disabilities in the United States, of financial abuse and widespread violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act (“Unruh Act”).
The Plaintiffs are eight current and former residents of six California Brookdale assisted living facilities—Brookdale Brookhurst, Fountaingrove, Hemet, San Ramon, Scotts Valley, and Tracy—and their successors in interest. Plaintiffs and their families came to Brookdale because they required assistance with activities of daily living, such as medication management, dressing, bathing, toileting, hygiene, food preparation, laundry and transportation. Rather than finding the care and assistance they needed, they encountered facilities that are systemically understaffed, lacking sufficient caregiver staff to provide the care and supervision for which residents pay Brookdale. These practices violate the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and laws prohibiting elder financial abuse and unfair business practices. Brookdale also violates the ADA and the Unruh Act by discriminating against people with disabilities in many ways, including by failing to provide accessible facilities to its residents and by failing to provide sufficient staff to care for residents with disabilities.
On January 25, 2019, the District Court denied Brookdale’s motion to dismiss, finding the ADA applies to assisted living facilities. Stiner v. Brookdale Senior Living, Inc., 354 F. Supp. 3d 1046 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 25, 2019). On March 30, 2023, the Court granted in part and denied in part Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. In the Order, the Court reaffirmed its prior judgment that the ADA applies to Brookdale’s assisted living facilities, rejected Brookdale’s argument that they do not own or operate the facilities, and certified a class of residents who use wheelchairs and scooters. The Certified Class is pursuing claims against Brookdale’s Fleet Safety Policy, which violates Title III of the ADA by requiring residents to transfer out of their scooters or power wheelchairs in order to ride on Brookdale’s vans or buses, denying them equal access to Brookdale’s transportation services because of their disabilities.
On October 13, 2023, the Plaintiffs in Stiner v. Brookdale filed a Fourth Amended Complaint in this federal lawsuit alleging elder financial abuse, consumer fraud, and widespread violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by Brookdale Senior Living in its California assisted living facilities. The Complaint is linked here. The amended complaint recites the successors in interest to named plaintiffs who have passed away, and lists the barriers to disability access in the six Brookdale facilities where the eight named plaintiffs reside or resided.
On February 7, 2024, the Court granted in part Plaintiffs’ motion for leave to file a motion for certification of subclasses. On February 9, 2024, Plaintiffs filed a motion, linked here, asking the Court to certify six facility-based subclasses regarding Brookdale’s failure to provide accessible living quarters and facilities to its residents with mobility and/or vision disabilities at the six assisted living facilities where the named Plaintiffs live or lived. On July 22, 2024 the Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion to certify the San Ramon, Scotts Valley, and Brookhurst Rule 23(b)(2) facility-based subclasses to pursue declaratory and injunctive relief, but denied Plaintiffs’ motion to certify the San Ramon, Scotts Valley, Brookhurst, Fountaingrove and Tracy Rule 23(b)(3) facility-based subclasses to seek statutory damages for lack of predominance. It also denied the motion to certify Plaintiffs’ proposed Hemet subclass for lack of numerosity. The court’s order is here.
On January 17, 2025, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. of the Northern District of California, postponed the trial set to begin in late January until April 7, 2025 “in recognition of the parties’ ongoing settlement discussions.” Dkt. No. 1015. As set at the November 12, 2024 Case Management Conference and further clarified following the Court’s December 13, 2024 Summary Judgment Order, the upcoming trial was to be the first of three total trials, with the first addressing only class claims for injunctive and declaratory relief against Defendants Brookdale Senior Living, Inc. and Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc., under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) and the Unruh Civil Rights Act (“Unruh Act”) for two certified subclasses. The remaining two trials—regarding the availability of individual damages under the Unruh Act for the eight individual named Plaintiffs, and Defendants’ failure to adequately staff the assisted living facilities—have yet to be scheduled.
On March 17, 2025 Plaintiffs filed an unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement for Injunctive Relief. Copies of the preliminary approval motion pleadings can be found here:
As discussed in the Declaration of Gay Crosthwait Grunfeld in Support of Plaintiffs’ Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval, the proposed settlement is “an excellent result for the certified subclasses. The proposed settlement ensures that Defendants will implement a number of measures to protect the rights of the subclasses and confer significant benefits on them .… [T]he proposed settlement is fundamentally fair, adequate, and reasonable.”
On May 1, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., the Court will hold a hearing to determine if the proposed settlement can be preliminarily approved. At that hearing, the Court will also decide when the final fairness hearing will be held and will set a procedure for members of the subclass to file objections, if any, to the Proposed Settlement.
The Proposed Settlement requires remediation of interior and exterior barriers at 3 California facilties, Brookdale Brookhurst, Brookdale San Ramon, and Brookdale Scotts Valley, to bring the areas into compliance with the 2010 Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Standards (“2010 ADAS”). The Proposed Settlement requires renovations of multiple resident units at each of the three Brookdale facilities to bring the units into full compliance with the 2010 ADAS, plus remediation of additional units at Brookhurst to comply with the ADAS’s requirements regarding residential dwelling units, which must be designed in a way to be brought into full compliance with the ADAS if a resident’s disability requires that.
The Proposed Settlement requires that the Parties negotiate and mutually agree upon a certified/licensed architect with a CASp certification, who will review the plans and will, along with Class Counsel, conduct an inspection of the final work. The Proposed Settlement also prohibits Brookdale from requiring any resident at the three facilities who needs an accessible room to pay for the remediation summarized in the Proposed Settlement or otherwise pay for any modification to their residential unit to accommodate their mobility and/or vision disability. The Proposed Settlement outlines a specific timeline by which Brookdale will complete the designated remediations and a timeline by which Brookdale will provide a cost estimate for the work and finish remediating the “readily achievable” barriers. The Proposed Settlement also ensures that the remediation work will be completed regardless of whether Brookdale sells or stops leasing or operating the facilities.
Brookdale is also agreeing that the current terms of the transportation policy known as the “Transporting Residents on Community Vehicles Policy,” will remain in effect and not be modified or otherwise altered as it pertains to permitting residents to remain on wheelchairs, scooters, or other powered mobility aids while being transported on a Brookdale vehicle, except if there is a change in law or regulation requiring the change.
Two of the certified subclasses will also benefit from the individual injunctive relief achieved in the public parts of the Individual Settlement, which will also be part of the Stipulated Injunction in the case. Brookdale has agreed to significant changes regarding the Emergency Planning and Evacuation procedures at the San Ramon and Scotts Valley facilities, and has agreed to more transparency in its communications with current and potential residents of those two facilities regarding how it determines the appropriate levels of caregiving staffing. Defendants have also promised to “apply a reasonable determination of the staffing hours reasonably required to perform the care tasks needed by the residents, as determined by the assessment procedures, the experience and/or education of the staff, the ability of staff to perform various tasks in parallel, the physical layout of the facility, and the reasonable discretion of the Executive Director and/or department coordinators,” and to provide regular reporting to Plaintiffs’ counsel regarding caregiver staffing at the San Ramon and Scotts Valley facilities for two years.
These three law firms represent plaintiffs:
Gay Crosthwait Grunfeld
Ben Bien Kahn
Jenny Yelin
Maya Campbell
Brenda Muñoz
Adrienne Spiegel
Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP
101 Mission Street, Sixth Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
Telephone: (415) 433-6830
Facsimile: (415) 433-7104
Email:
ggrunfeld@rbgg.com
bbien-kahn@rbgg.com
jyelin@rbgg.com
mcampbell@rbgg.com
bmunoz@rbgg.com
aspiegel@rbgg.com
Kathryn A. Stebner
Brian Umpierre
Stebner Gertler Guadagni & Kawamoto
870 Market Street, Suite 1285
San Francisco, CA 94102-2918
Telephone: (415) 362-9800
Facsimile: (415) 362-8901
Email:
kathryn@sggklaw.com
brian@sggklaw.com
Guy B. Wallace
Mark T. Johnson
Travis C. Close
Rachel Steyer
Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky Wotkyns, LLP
2000 Powell Street, Suite 1400
Emeryville, CA 94608
Telephone: (415) 421-7100
Facsimile: (415) 421-7105
Email:
gwallace@schneiderwallace.com
mjohnson@schneiderwallace.com
tclose@schneiderwallace.com
rsteyer@schneiderwallace.com