Parents will fight for the right of their children to sleep in a hotel bed, in a city that recently voted to ban outdoor sleeping, after a lawsuit filed by the families of two children killed in a fire on a toddler travel travel bed.
On May 6, the families filed a lawsuit against the city of San Diego and the San Diego Fire Department for not providing adequate safety for their children in the hotel room.
The lawsuit also names San Diego, the City of San Francisco, and San Diego County as defendants.
On Friday, the San Francisco Superior Court dismissed the lawsuit.
It’s the first of its kind in the country.
The families also want the city to give them the right to inspect hotel rooms and take photos of children sleeping there.
It also said the city has a responsibility to provide reasonable accommodations for children with disabilities in order to ensure they can safely sleep in hotel rooms.
“We are grateful to be able to make this case, but we are also deeply concerned that the city continues to refuse to make these accommodations,” said David R. Leblanc, one of the attorneys representing the families in the lawsuit and an associate professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
“This case has already led to the death of a child and the injury of many others, but now the city is trying to delay or prevent the families from obtaining the necessary safety protections,” he said.
The city has denied the families’ requests for a court order that would require it to allow the families to sleep at least two hours per day.
But the city did grant a temporary restraining order last month to prevent the lawsuit from going forward, saying the plaintiffs “are seeking to harass and threaten the city with a lawsuit.”
The city also issued a memo on Monday directing hotels to make accommodations for parents who need the room.
The City Council approved the temporary restraining orders last month after parents complained about the lack of a hotel room for their two children, who were under six years old.
They had been staying at a hotel near the Mission and Union stations in San Diego.
On Tuesday, the council voted to prohibit hotel room occupancy by people with disabilities and to make it illegal to allow children under five years old to stay in hotel room spaces without supervision.