Recent Court Rulings

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Facts: A resident sued the local housing authority (PHA) for allegedly violating her due process rights. She claimed that the PHA withheld permission for her to obtain new housing after she had been evicted from her previous unit, and denied her a hearing related to that permission.

Facts: A local housing authority filed a lawsuit to evict a resident for violating the terms of her lease and federal law due to two incidents of drug-related or criminal activity in her unit. The first incident occurred in November 2009 when officers saw a man standing outside the resident's building. The man tried to get away from the officers and ran into the building. Three officers chased him up the stairs to the resident's unit on the third floor.

Facts: A resident signed a one-year lease to rent a unit designated for Section 8 housing. At the time of signing, the resident was required to sign an additional lease for a term of one year with the local housing authority. The lease set forth various rules and regulations that restrict certain actions and behaviors at the building.

Facts: A woman sought to reverse a determination by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) denying her request for succession rights to her deceased mother's unit. The woman grew up in the building, moved out in 1998, and hasn't been listed as an occupant or tenant of the unit since that time. In August 2009, she returned to the unit along with her two young children to care for her mother whose health was declining rapidly. After her mother's death, she tried to obtain a lease to the unit in her name as a “remaining family member.”

Facts: A disabled resident's immune system is unable to filter out toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and asbestos. She sued the site owner and property management company for discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, claiming that they failed to make a reasonable accommodation for her disability, and under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which requires nondiscrimination and reasonable accommodation among recipients of federal financial assistance.

Facts: A local housing authority terminated a resident's Section 8 rental assistance for violating the Section 8 requirement that all persons living in the unit must be approved by the housing authority. Specifically, the termination letter stated an unapproved person was "registered as a sexual offender, at your address on October 23, 2010." The letter advised the household of their right to dispute the determination by requesting an informal hearing.

Facts: An Iowa resident sued to overturn a PHA's decision to terminate her Section 8 housing assistance based on her failure to report income. The resident challenged the PHA's policy of treating a failure to report each of her child's Social Security benefits as a separate occurrence of unreported income and claimed that the policy violated the Fair Housing Act on the basis of familial status discrimination.

Facts: A resident's 18-year-old son was arrested and found guilty in municipal court of possession of marijuana on the local housing authority's property. Based on the arrest, the housing authority attempted to evict the resident for her son's drug-related activity.

Facts: A New York resident's lease requires the resident to furnish the owner with complete and accurate information regarding his household income. In 2006, the housing authority's acting inspector general informed the site manager that they had conducted an investigation of the resident and determined from a city's vendor questionnaire that he had owned a "cleaning and janitorial services company...

Facts: A resident with arthritis and an autoimmune disease complained that the lack of heat in her building exacerbated her disability. After code enforcement and Section 8 inspectors inspected the site, the resident claimed that the site management blamed her for the inspection and criticized her for speaking to other residents about problems at the site.