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A federal appellate has considered whether a landlord is required by the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act ("Act") to accommodate a disabled housing applicant's request to have his mother act as a cosigner for his lease, which was prohibited by the landlord's policies.
John Giebeler ("Tenant") has AIDS and is unable to work because of his illness. Because he was unable to work, the Tenant needed to find an apartment with a lower rent and also closer to his mother so she could assist him with daily matters. The Tenant found a satisfactory apartment in a property owned by M&B Associates ("Landlord"). The Tenant's financial situation did not allow him to qualify financially for an apartment. However, his financially-qualified mother agreed to act as a cosigner on the Tenant's lease application. Both the Tenant and his mother had spotless credit histories.
The Landlord rejected the Tenant's lease application. The Landlord's rental policies required the Tenant to have an income three times the rental amount. While the Tenant had formerly held a job which met that qualification, he no longer could meet this requirement. The Landlord also had a policy preventing consigners on lease agreements.
Following the rejection of his application, the Tenant contacted a local AIDS legal clinic and an attorney from the clinic wrote a letter to the Landlord on behalf of the Tenant, stating that the Act required the Landlord to make reasonable accommodations in its housing policies to allow handicapped individuals equal access to housing opportunities. The Landlord denied that federal law required it to modify its application policies. The Tenant then filed a lawsuit, alleging violations of the Act as well as other causes of action. After the trial court entered an initial ruling, the parties settled the lawsuit except for the reasonable accommodation claims. Since the trial court had ruled against the Tenant on his reasonable accommodation claims, the Tenant appealed that ruling.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the trial court and ruled in favor of the Tenant on the reasonable accommodation claims. The Act prohibits the discrimination in the sale or rental of housing because of a disability of either the renter/buyer, person intending to reside in the dwelling, or any person associated with the buyer/renter. The Act defines discrimination as the refusal to make "reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy such a dwelling." In order to make out a case of housing discrimination based on the failure to reasonably accommodate, a party must show: a handicap, as defined in the Act; other party knew of handicap; accommodation might be necessary to allow the party to enjoy dwelling; and other party refuses to make such accommodation. There was no dispute that the Tenant had a disability as defined in the Act, nor was there any dispute that the Landlord was aware of the Tenant's disability. Thus, the court looked at whether it was necessary for the Landlord to make a reasonable accommodation for the Tenant.
The court determined that the Tenant was entitled to the protections of the Act, and so the Landlord had a duty to accommodate the Tenant's reasonable accommodation request. The complications from AIDS limited the Tenant's ability to work, and this inability to work made it impossible for the Tenant to qualify on his own for residential housing. The Landlord argued that the Act did not require the Landlord to adapt the "means" of testing financial capabilities of individual applicants, as this was outside the scope of what Congress intended when it created the Act because this would be an accommodation for the Tenant's poor financial condition, rather than for his disability.
The court rejected this argument, finding that the Act did require the Landlord to make accommodations in evaluating the financial means of disabled individuals, when such means are directly impacted by the disability. The court based its ruling on a recent Supreme Court of the United States' decision which had found that the Americans with Disability Act ("ADA") required an employer to make accommodations for disabled individuals even if it involved removing barriers which also served as barriers for non-disabled individuals (in that case, it was the company's seniority policy). See U.S. Airways v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391 (2002).
The court applied the same reasoning in this case, concluding that the Act required the Landlord to alter its means of testing the Tenant's application because of his disability. The court found the Tenant's request reasonable because he was not seeking to pay the Landlord any less money in rent nor was he seeking to alter the obligations of tenancy (i.e., requirement to pay rent in a timely fashion). All that the Tenant sought from the Landlord was the ability to allow an individual with the proper financial qualifications to act as cosigner on his lease, since his disability prevented him from working. Thus, the court ruled in favor of the Tenant on his reasonable accommodations request, and the case was sent back to the trial court for further proceedings.
Giebeler v. M&B Assoc., 343 F.3d 1143 (9th Cir. 2003).