Recent Court Rulings

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Facts: During a dispute with an owner over utilities, a Section 8 resident asked her local PHA for a transfer of her voucher to another unit. The PHA denied her request because she wasn’t in good standing with her current owner and after submitting additional hearing requests, she was again denied.

Facts: Two nonprofit insurance trade associations filed a lawsuit against HUD, challenging its final rule providing for liability based on disparate impact under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). HUD had recently finalized regulations that were intended to codify how a disparate impact claim is established, including the respective burdens that the plaintiffs and defendants must carry. Under “disparate impact,” a person may be held liable for discriminatory conduct under the FHA without any showing of actual intent to discriminate.

Facts: In 2010, a Section 8 resident fell behind in paying her portion of her unit’s subsidized rent. The owner started an eviction lawsuit. The court issued an “Order for Possession,” finding that the owner was entitled to possession of the resident’s unit.

Facts: As a participant in the voucher program, a resident attended a recertification meeting in November 2010. In her recertification application, she stated that she didn’t receive income from self-employment, and listed Social Security payments as the sole source of income for herself and her five children.

Facts: On June 1, 2012, a PHA executed a housing assistance payments (HAP) contract with an owner, and the owner entered into a Section 8 lease with a resident. The rent under the contract was $1,250; the PHA provided assistance of $1,216 per month, making the resident’s rent $34 per month.

Facts: A site manager claimed that her former employer retaliated against her for opposing unlawful housing discrimination and unlawful employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. She claimed that she was harassed and ultimately terminated by the owner because she opposed a supervisor’s instruction to deny tenancy to Russian applicants who applied for vacancies in the affordable housing building she managed.

Facts: A resident sued the local PHA for injuries she suffered when another resident’s dog bit her. The other resident had acquired the dog, a pit bull, in late 2009. The suing resident described the dog as aggressive and vicious, barking at her ferociously, and jumping on the chain-link fence to snarl at anyone who passed by. But the dog’s owner kept the dog in a fenced area, and the suing resident never confronted her about it.

Facts: A prospective resident sued two private apartment building owners for refusing to rent him a unit. The prospective resident tried to rent a unit using a voucher provided through the local PHA. But after he applied for a unit, each owner informed him that he hadn’t been approved due to his criminal background—specifically, his status as a lifetime registered sex offender.

Facts: The brother of a Section 8 resident often visited the resident’s unit and babysat her children. In October 2011, the police investigated the brother after a confidential informant told officers that the brother kept a black .380 caliber firearm in the resident’s unit.

Facts: When a resident lived in another county, the local PHA approved her reasonable accommodation request for a live-in aide. The PHA found that the resident has a permanent cognitive disorder and “needs 24 hours a day care to function normally.” The resident’s sister is her primary caregiver. And according to her doctor at the time, a two-bedroom unit for the resident and her sister would provide a reasonable accommodation for the resident’s disability.