From Valentine v. Washington Nationals Baseball Membership, LLC, determined immediately by Choose Timothy Kelly (D.D.C.), the plaintiff’s allegations:
On Could 5, 2021, Valentine visited the [Washington Nationals stadium] to attend a recreation. At the moment, to adjust to District of Columbia Mayor’s Order 2020-080 associated to COVID-19, Defendants enforced a masks mandate on all attendees. One exemption within the Mayor’s Order, nonetheless, gives: “Carrying a masks just isn’t required when … [a] particular person is unable to put on a masks on account of a medical situation or incapacity.”
Valentine didn’t put on a masks on the recreation as a result of, he alleges, he “is an individual with a incapacity inside the which means of the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] and DCHRA [D.C. Human Rights Act]” and is “unable to put on a masks on account of his incapacity.” However Nationals Park personnel allegedly “demanded” he put on one a number of occasions. Throughout every confrontation, he responded that he had a medical situation and, due to it, couldn’t put on a masks. Valentine declined to reveal the character of his medical situation when requested. The Nationals’ Vice President of Security and Safety finally instructed Valentine that, until he wore a face masks or face protect, he could be ejected. Valentine alleges the Vice President “didn’t supply any cheap lodging.”
Finally, Defendants ejected Valentine.
Valentine alleges that afterward, he felt “embarrassment and humiliation” for being “handled like a felony and kicked out of a baseball recreation due to his incapacity.” He tried to resolve his grievances with out resorting to a lawsuit. Defendants responded by inviting Valentine to return again to Nationals Park for “a recreation of [his] selecting” at “any time” in the course of the 2021 common season and warranted him that his expertise on Could was “a one-time incidence.” Valentine additionally alleges that “there’s at present no masks mandate in place at Nationals Park.”
Evidently, the Nationals’ proposed decision proved unsatisfactory and so Valentine, representing himself, sued Defendants for 3 counts below the ADA and one below the DCHRA.
The court docket dismissed the ADA go well with, as a result of the cures below the ADA “don’t embody cash damages,” and injunctive or declaratory aid could be unavailable as a result of he “[n]both suffered an ‘ongoing damage’ [n]or confronted an ‘rapid risk of damage,” on condition that “Defendants [have] ended the challenged masks mandate coverage.” But it surely allowed the DCHRA declare to go ahead, as a result of Valentine had adequately alleged, in his court docket papers, “the character of his alleged incapacity and why that incapacity prevents him from sporting face masks” and even “face protect[s].” (The precise particulars of the alleged incapacity had been filed below seal, and are thus at present accessible solely to the court docket and the events, however the court docket discovered them to be adequately alleged.)
