ShareA Michigan federal district court has ruled that a landlord whose occupancy policy conforms to both local and federal building codes will not be protected automatically from discrimination claims made under the federal fair housing laws.
Steve and Patricia Reeves ("Prospective Tenants") sought to rent an apartment for their family of four from Sheldon Rose d/b/a Sycamore Apartments ("Landlord"). The Landlord's representative told the Prospective Tenants that the Landlord could not rent to the Prospective Tenants because "state law" only allowed one child in a two-bedroom apartment. Following their rejection, the Prospective Tenants contacted the Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit ("Housing Group"). The Housing Group conducted some testing, sending out separate groups of both white and African American testers (the Prospective Tenants were African American) to the Landlord's rental offices. The testers stated to the Landlord's representatives that they had families composed of a specific size or with different family member compositions (i.e., a family of four or a family with two children). Based on the testing results, the Housing Group concluded that there was unlawful discriminatory behavior and so referred the Prospective Tenants to an attorney to help them file a lawsuit.
The Prospective Tenants filed a lawsuit against the Landlord. They alleged violations of the federal Fair Housing Act ("Act"), as well as violations of various federal and state civil rights acts. The Act is designed to eliminate discrimination from the housing marketplace. One type of discrimination that the Act prohibits is discrimination based on "familial status." Familial status is defined in the Act as one or more children under the age of 18 living with either a parent or a guardian. Following the filing of this lawsuit, the Landlord filed a motion with the court seeking a ruling in its favor, since its occupancy policies were based on both federal and local building codes.
The United States District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, ruled against the Landlord, finding that there were issues of fact which needed to be resolved at trial. The court considered the Landlord's argument that it could not have violated the Act because its rules conformed with both local and federal building codes. The Landlord pointed to the local building code (which adopted the language of the federal building regulations), which stated specific size requirements for each room. These measurements varied, depending on the number of occupants intended to reside in each room. Relying upon the size measurements set forth in the ordinance, the Landlord created an occupancy policy which allowed only three occupants to reside in its two-bedroom apartments. Since the Landlord's policy was based on the local ordinance, the Landlord argued its rules were neutral and were not designed to discriminate based on familial status. The Landlord also referenced a memo from the United States Housing and Urban Development Department on the issue of occupancy standards under the Act. This stated that the "occupancy policy of two persons in a bedroom, as a general rule, is reasonable" under the Act, but added that any non-governmental restriction should be evaluated to determine if it "unreasonably" limits or excludes families with children. The Landlord further argued that its rules were a necessary business precaution, intended to prevent unnecessary wear and tear on its apartments.
The Prospective Tenants countered the Landlord's position by claiming that the size of the bedrooms in the Landlord's apartments were at the very limit of the ordinance restrictions (one bedroom was three square feet short of being qualified as a two-person bedroom). Therefore, the Prospective Tenants argued that the occupancy policy should be evaluated as to whether it was an unreasonable nongovernmental restriction which operated to exclude families with children.
The court ruled that there was an issue of fact which would need to be resolved at trial as to whether the Landlord's occupancy restrictions were reasonable. Therefore, the court denied the Landlord's motion for judgement in its form.
Reeves v. Rose, 108 F. Supp. 2d 720 (E.D. Mich. 2000).