The Westfield Valencia Town Center is listed as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Los Angeles County for the “unlawful and unjustifiable” decision not to allow indoor malls to re-open despite state health officials giving the go-ahead.

On Monday, Westfield filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States District Court against the County of Los Angeles and several public officials over the decision to keep indoor malls closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit is alleging that the county “forced hundreds of businesses in indoor malls to close, kept thousands of county residents out of work, caused millions of dollars in lost wages and revenue, and brought many businesses to the brink of collapse—without offering a single valid, science- or health-based reason for their actions.”

“In doing so, the County and its officials have overtly discriminated against businesses in indoor malls and their employees without any rational basis whatsoever, trampling the constitutional rights of those businesses and individuals,” the suit reads.

The Westfield Valencia Town Center is listed as a plaintiff in the suit, as their indoor operations have remained closed for the most part since mid-March, with the exception of a brief period in the summer when indoor malls were allowed to re-open.

The Valencia mall is over one million square feet in size, and employs an estimated 3,700 people.

“Valencia Town Center meticulously analyzed its hourly capacity tracking data from 2019 and confirmed that the mall has more than enough space to reopen while complying with social distancing guidelines,” the suit reads.

In addition to the County of Los Angeles, the suit also lists the County Board of Supervisors, County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis, County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer and Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva as defendants.

“The County has refused to follow the State’s science-based approach,” the suit reads. “On September 2, 2020, Dr. Davis, the County of Los Angeles Health Officer, ordered that, in this county, all indoor portions and operations of indoor malls and shopping centers must ‘remain closed to the public until further notice.’ That action breaks sharply from the County’s previous practice of aligning its business restrictions with those imposed by the State.”

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On Aug. 28, the California Department of Public Health announced that indoor operations for malls could resume with restrictions in counties throughout the state, including those in the state’s “Tier 1” of the re-opening process such as Los Angeles County.

However, in a Health Order issued by Davis on Sept. 2 indoor malls were defined as “Lower-Risk Businesses,” which were not allowed to open when the issue was ordered. Other businesses listed in this category include “large department stores, small retailers, and hair salons and barbershops,” all of which have since been permitted to re-open indoor operations in a limited capacity.

“The County’s forced closure of indoor malls and shopping centers stands in stark contrast to its treatment of virtually every other retail establishment, including large and small scale retailers and hair salons and barbershops not inside malls—all of which were permitted to reopen immediately and operate at a minimum at 25 percent capacity, in accordance with statewide guidelines,” the suit reads.

The suit further alleges that there is “absolutely no evidence to support the County’s unique and discriminatory treatment of indoor malls and shopping centers,” and that such treatment is “perverse because the County has seen steady improvement in its COVID-19 transmission metrics (…) but has not bothered to reconsider its position.”

“There is no data showing that indoor malls are any less safe than the large retail stores that have been open for months or the ‘outdoor’ malls that the County has permitted to reopen. Nor has the County or any other Defendant offered a data-based explanation—or any reason whatsoever—for this differential treatment,” the suit reads. “This continued unreasoned and unjustified policy has needlessly shuttered hundreds of businesses and thrown thousands of employees out of work, devastating those businesses, their employees, and their families.”

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