FHA Litigation
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Missing the forest for the trees – Are the ADA Standards just a bunch of numbers?
On September 30 the District Court for the Eastern District of California denied in part and granted in part a defense motion for summary judgment concerning ADA compliance in the mens restroom at a Bed Bath & Beyond. Feezor v. Excel Stockton LLC, 2013 WL 5486831 (E.D.Cal. 2013). In a 5300 word opinion the Court mentions only… Continue reading
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Patience pays off when defending ADA cases
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes” was William Prescott’s famous advice to the colonial soldiers defending Bunker Hill, and that kind of patience can be important to ADA defendants as well. Property owners and operators sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act always face a strategic choice: Should they simply remediate… Continue reading
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Assistance Animals and the FHA – Lessons from a new lawsuit by the DOJ
On July 1 the Department of Justice announced the filing of another lawsuit challenging what it calls discrimination based on the refusal to allow a therapy animal without a pet deposit. U.S. v Barber, 3:13-05539 (W.D. Wash). Coming on the heels of HUD’s April 25 “Notice Concerning Service Animals and Assistance Animal” the lawsuit is… Continue reading
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Picking and choosing – HUD has its own notions of what the FHA requires.
On April 30, 2013 HUD and the Department of Justice issued a “Joint Statement” concerning FHA issues. It includes some straightforward tips about compliance with the FHA, but also includes some examples of how these agencies pick and choose among statutes and regulations in ways that might be hard to predict. The first example is… Continue reading
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Pleading ADA defenses: What’s sauce for the goose . . .
A case decided just last week, Dodson v. Strategic Restaurants Acquisition Co., 2013 WL 3120322 (E.D. Cal. 2013) is worth study for any ADA or FHA defense attorney. There is plenty of technically useful information because the Court has provided an extensive survey of cases discussing whether Iqbal and Twombly apply to affirmative defenses. This is an unsettled… Continue reading