Recent Court Rulings

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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 r...

Facts: In June 2011, a resident signed a one-year lease to rent a unit. The resident was initially approved for rental assistance that reduced her rent to $199 per month. She paid that amount until her next certification in January 2012, when her subsidy was increased to an amount that effectively lowered her monthly rent to $0 per month. Also as a result of this recertification, her lease was renewed for another one-year term, set to expire at the end ...

Facts: In the summer of 2012, a resident began to engage in bizarre and, at times, alarming behavior with fellow residents at the site. One resident, who considered the troubled resident a friend and expressed her concern for his well-being, complained that he repeatedly showed up at her unit without invitation. She wasn’t bothered by his daytime visits but didn’t want him coming over after 9 p.m. She told him so, but he continued to make un...

Facts: A local PHA claimed that a resident violated his lease by using marijuana. One of the site’s security officers testified at the eviction evidentiary hearing that he smelled marijuana coming from the resident’s unit during his routine patrol of the building. Although the resident denied using marijuana that day, the court found the security officer more credible. Thus, the court determined that there was a “preponderance of evide...

Facts: An owner’s site has had a history of “unsatisfactory” HUD audit reviews since 2005, and in 2009 and 2010 HUD refused to pay more than $700,000 in subsidies due to the site’s violations of HUD regulations. To satisfy HUD, the owner hired a HUD-approved managing agent in 2010, and subsidy payments to the owner resumed. According to HUD, during the approved management company’s tenure managing the site, the owner’...