Recent Court Rulings

RSS

Facts: An employee of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) began her career in October 1979 as a secretary. Twenty-five years later, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and in November 2006, she began an approved leave of absence under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to deal with her condition. She returned to work in late February 2007.

Facts: A resident of a Boise city housing complex claimed that after he made a complaint to the management about maintenance, the city retaliated against him by filing eviction notices.

Facts: The Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA) subsidized the rents under HAP contracts between HUD and the owners of two Section 8 sites: Greenleaf Apartments and Sandburg Village Apartments. Both the Greenleaf and the Sandburg contracts establish rent amounts that obligate IHDA to make assistance payments in amounts equal to the difference between the contract rents and the payments made by residents.

Facts: In February 2009, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) initiated a nationwide request-for-proposal (RFP) to reduce the cost of management at Horner Housing Development by reducing the number of property management firms involved in the management of the complex.

Facts: In February 2007, a sewer backed up in Wheatland Homes, a public housing complex managed by the North Newton Housing Authority. The complex's executive director met with maintenance personnel and asked whether any of the other units in the fourplex had been checked for damage. Upon learning that they had not, he directed maintenance personnel to do so.

Facts: In 1990, after two years as property manager, an African-American employee of the St. Clair Housing Authority informed his supervisor that he had an interest in the position of director of property management. The supervisor selected a white man for the position, and the property manager was promoted to operations supervisor, supervising three to four property managers and developing screening criteria for public housing applicants.

Facts: As a result of conditions found at an annual unit inspection, the site owner terminated a resident's lease. At a formal grievance hearing in February 2009, the hearing officer supported the owner's decision to terminate the lease as a result of several lease violations, including damage to the outside garage door, soiled carpets, and children's crayon markings on the walls of the unit.

Facts: A resident who was living on the third floor of a building that did not have an elevator gave the site manager a note from her physician, requesting that she be moved to any available first-floor unit because her physical condition prevented her from engaging in strenuous activity. The resident claimed to suffer from a variety of medical conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, depression, and asthma. Over the next few years, the resident made numerou...

Facts: The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) undertook the eviction of a resident who assaulted his twin brother on public housing development grounds, claiming that he constituted a threat to the safety of other tenants. The resident, in turn, claimed that he had a mental disability and argued that the BHA should have tried to reasonably accommodate his disability before terminating his tenancy.

Facts: The New York City Housing Authority took action to terminate the tenancy of a resident for being chronically late in paying rent. The resident claimed that the housing authority improperly denied him a grievance hearing to contest its actions to evict him. The housing authority claimed, however, that the resident failed to meet the requirements for filing a grievance and had previously chosen not to attend several other applicable hearings. The resident su...