What happened
On November 12, 2026, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published opinion in Beram v. City of Sedona, No. 23-15912. The panel was Circuit Judges Roopali H. Desai and Ana de Alba and District Judge Edward M. Chen of the Northern District of California, sitting by designation. Judge Desai wrote the opinion. No concurrence or dissent is listed.
Sabrina Beram, a Sedona, Arizona resident, alleges that obsessive-compulsive disorder often keeps her from entering her apartment, so she sleeps in her car. A city ordinance, Sedona City Code § 9.10.010, prohibits sleeping in a vehicle on public or private property. It also makes it unlawful for a property owner to knowingly permit a violation. A violation is a class 1 misdemeanor, and no one may be arrested without first being warned. Police officers warned Beram twice. The city denied her requests for a reasonable accommodation under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, including a narrowed request not to be charged while sleeping in her car at her apartment complex. The district court dismissed her case for lack of standing.
The panel affirmed the dismissal of Beram's Eighth Amendment claim, which she had abandoned after the Supreme Court's 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. It reversed the dismissal of her ADA claim, and the denial of leave to amend it, and remanded: "AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part, and REMANDED."
What the opinion says
The constitutional question was Article III standing. The opinion states the rule: a person with a disability alleging discrimination "must satisfy the case or controversy requirement of Article III," which requires an injury in fact, causation and redressability.
Damages. Citing TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez and Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, the panel wrote that Congress cannot "simply enact an injury into existence." Even so, it held that discrimination is a concrete harm that Congress gave "actionable legal status," and that "Beram's allegation that the city discriminated against her in violation of the ADA, alone, is a sufficient concrete injury." It added that her alleged lost income and emotional distress were also concrete injuries.
Injunctive relief. The panel wrote that it had "not had occasion to apply" the pre-enforcement "credible threat of enforcement" standard to an ADA claim, and that it did so "in this unique context" because Beram seeks to stop enforcement of a criminal ordinance against her. It weighed three factors. First, Beram has a "concrete plan" to keep sleeping in her car. Second, because the ordinance requires a warning before a charge, the officers' warnings "were not mere threats of enforcement: they were the first step of enforcement." Third, the city's past citations of at least two people on private property gave "some, albeit limited, support," because Beram alleged no facts showing those people were similarly situated to her.
Causation and redressability. The city argued that any injury came from Beram's landlord, and that an exemption in subsection I of the ordinance covered sleeping in a car with a property owner's consent. The panel answered that the ordinance itself reaches private property and private owners, and that subsection I exempts only "parking" with the consent of a "government property owner." It held the harm "traceable to the city and redressable by an injunction."
On the merits question, the panel held that Beram stated a viable Title II theory: "Discrimination under Title II may include the failure to provide reasonable accommodation that would allow a person with a disability to comply with a criminal ordinance." On remand she may file a fifth amended complaint.
Where it sits in the record
The opinion applies the Supreme Court's standing framework from TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (2021), Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins (2016) and Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus (2014). For the pre-enforcement standard it cites First Choice Women's Resources Centers, Inc. v. Davenport (2026). It also cites Steffel v. Thompson (1974), where two warnings and a threat of prosecution supported a pre-enforcement suit. The Eighth Amendment claim dropped out of the case after City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520 (2024).
Sources
Record updates report what happened and take no side. Signed analysis is kept apart, in Positions. Published November 12, 2026.