Page:Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer.pdf/9

Rh antecedent to whether her later actions mooted the case. More importantly, whether Laufer has standing to bring her Reservation Rule claims is a recurring question that only this Court can definitively resolve. As the majority explains, “Laufer has singlehandedly generated a circuit split” on her standing. And Laufer is far from the only Reservation Rule tester. See, e.g., Harty v. West Point Realty, Inc., 28 F. 4th 435 (CA2 2022); Love v. Marriott Ownership Resorts, Inc., No. 20–cv–7523 (ND Cal., Mar. 29, 2021); Sarwar v. Om Sai, LLC, No. 2:20–cv–483 (D Me., May 18, 2021). Beyond answering this question for our colleagues on the Courts of AppealAppeals [sic] and District Courts, we should answer it for Acheson Hotels, which has spent significant time and resources fully briefing a question that will now go unanswered.

What is more, the circumstances strongly suggest strategic behavior on Laufer’s part. After this case was well underway in this Court, Laufer filed a notice with the District Court voluntarily dismissing her claim with prejudice, ostensibly because another court sanctioned one of her attorneys for misconduct related to some of Laufer’s ADA cases. But the attorney in question had nothing to do with the case before us. Suggestion of Mootness 3 (acknowledging at-issue attorney “had no involvement in the present case before this Court”). Laufer’s logic is thus that she dismissed her claim—and the Court should no longer address whether she had standing—because an attorney she hired in an entirely different case engaged in misconduct. An unrelated attorney’s conduct does nothing to change the analysis required to determine a plaintiff’s standing. Laufer admits as much, arguing only that the alleged misconduct “could distract from the merits of her ADA claims and everything she has sought to achieve for persons with disabilities like herself.” Id., at 4. I would not reward Laufer’s transparent tactic for evading our review. Although the majority leaves the door open to “exercise [its] discretion differently in a