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Defendant's Attorney: Jonathan H. Eiseman, Jeffrey L. Goss, Blithe S. Bock, Scott Marcus, Kathleen A. Kenealy, Michael N. Feuer

Description: Los Angeles, California civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff, who sued Defendant challenging the collection of location data relating to the motorized electric scooters.


Companies such as Bird, Lime, and Lyft began offering
e-scooters for rent to the public in Los Angeles in 2017. The
e-scooters are dockless, meaning they can be left anywhere
after use and picked up by the next rider. They are also
internet-connected, and are rented through the companies’
smartphone applications, which charge riders based on the
distance and duration of the trip taken.

In 2018, Los Angeles enacted a “Shared Mobility Device
Pilot Program” to regulate the fledgling industry. L.A. Ord.
185,785 (Sept. 13, 2018). The program required companies
to obtain a permit from the Los Angeles Department of
Transportation (“LADOT”) to offer e-scooters for rent and
mandated that permittees “comply with all Department
permit rules, regulations, indemnification, insurance and fee
requirements.” Id. As a condition of getting a permit,
LADOT required e-scooter operators to provide vehicle
location data through an application programming interface
(“API”)2 called Mobility Data Specification (“MDS”). Used
in conjunction with the operators’ smartphone applications,
MDS automatically compiles real-time data on each e-
scooter’s location by collecting the start and end points and
times of each ride taken.3 Because LADOT obtains data
directly from the companies in real time, it can manage the
public right-of-way actively and “communicate directly with
product companies in real time using code.”4

Plaintiff Justin Sanchez uses e-scooters to travel from his
home to work, visit friends, frequent local businesses, and
access places of leisure. His complaint asserts that the
collection of MDS location data by LADOT violates the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution;
Article I, Section 13 of the California Constitution; and the
California Electronic Communications Privacy Act
(“CalECPA”), Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et seq.

The complaint alleges that the MDS protocols provide
the location of e-scooters with Orwellian precision, to within
1.11 centimeters of their exact location. It acknowledges
that “MDS does not collect any information directly
identifying the rider of a particular vehicle.” But, Sanchez
alleges that government actors could subsequently “match
users’ trajectories in anonymized data from one dataset, with
deanonymized data in another,” and research indicates
programmers “could identify 50% of people from only two
randomly chosen data points in a dataset that contained only
time and location data.” The City therefore can “easily,” he
alleges, use MDS data in conjunction with other information
to identify trips by individuals to sensitive locations. And,
because the location data may be preserved in accordance
with LADOT data-retention policies, Sanchez alleges that
the City can travel back in time to retrace a rider’s
whereabouts.

The district court granted LADOT’s motion to dismiss
the complaint without leave to amend. Sanchez v. L.A. Dep’t
of Transp., No. CV-20-5044-DMG, 2021 WL 1220690
(C.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2021). It found that the LADOT program
is not a search under the Fourth Amendment because
Sanchez has no reasonable expectation of privacy over
anonymous MDS location data. Id. at *4. It alternatively
concluded that, even if the collection of MDS data were a
search, it is a reasonable administrative one and thus
constitutional. Id. at *5–6. Because “the right to be free
from unreasonable searches under Art. I § 13 of the
California Constitution parallels the Fourth Amendment
inquiry,” Sanchez v. Cnty. of San Diego, 464 F.3d 916, 928–
29 (9th Cir. 2006), the district court also dismissed
Sanchez’s state constitutional claim. Id. at *2. And it
rejected the CalECPA claim, finding that the statute did not
provide Sanchez a private right of action. Id. at *6.
Finding any amendment futile, the district court
dismissed the complaint with prejudice. Id. This timely
appeal followed.

Outcome: Affirmed.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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