Judge for Yourself: Resolving Disputes Over Accommodation Requests
In this month’s lesson, Fair Housing Coach invites you to be the judge in several recent court cases involving reasonable accommodation requests. Fair housing law prohibits housing discrimination based on disability, and one form of disability discrimination is refusal to make reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.
But what exactly is a reasonable accommodation, and when is someone entitled to one? It’s easy enough to check the rules, but it’s often difficult to apply them in the real world. So it’s no wonder that disputes over reasonable accommodation requests often lead to formal fair housing complaints—and, if not resolved, land in court. In fact, claims of disability discrimination account for the greatest percentage of fair housing complaints—often because of clashes over accommodation requests.
In this month’s lesson, we’re asking how you would decide courtroom battles over reasonable accommodation requests. We’ve compiled some court rulings issued in the past few months, summarized what happened, and highlighted the issues involved—now it’s up to you to resolve the dispute. When you’ve made a decision in each case, you can turn to the Coach’s Answers & Explanations to see what the court decided and the reasons for the court’s ruling.
WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?
The federal Fair Housing Act (FHA) makes it unlawful to refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services that may be necessary to afford a person the equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling.
In general, “reasonable accommodations” are changes, exceptions, or adjustments to any of your policies, rules, procedures, or services when needed by an individual with a disability to have equal opportunity to enjoy her unit and common areas. Common examples—and frequent sources of litigation—include requests for exceptions to pet policies for assistance animals and changes to parking rules to reserve an accessible space.
Problems often arise because there’s some question about whether the resident or applicant qualifies for a reasonable accommodation—that is, that he or she is an individual with a disability. The law defines “disability” as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. “Impairments” include a wide range of physical and mental conditions; “major life activities” are those are of central importance to daily life, such as seeing, hearing, walking, breathing, or working.
To prove a claim for failure to provide a reasonable accommodation to an individual with a disability, courts generally require the applicant or resident to show that:
- He or she (or someone associated with him) has a disability;
- He or she requested an accommodation;
- The community refused to make the accommodation; and
- The community knew or should have known of the disability at the time of the refusal.
In general, courts also require the individual to prove that the requested accommodation is both necessary and reasonable. To show that a requested accommodation may be necessary, federal guidelines state that there must be an identifiable relationship between the requested accommodation and the individual’s disability. And a requested accommodation is unreasonable when it would impose an undue financial and administrative burden on the community or result in a fundamental alteration of its operations.
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ANIMAL—WEIGHT RESTRICTION
Can Resident Keep Dog Over Weight Limit as Emotional Support Animal?
Community Asks for More Information—How Much Is Enough?
The Dispute: The community has a rule against keeping animals over 25 pounds, but the resident has a dog that exceeds that weight. When told to remove it, the resident says he has a disability and needs the dog as an emotional support animal. He provides documentation, but when asked for more information, the resident sues the community for denying his request for a reasonable accommodation.
What Happened: The resident lived in a condominium community, which prohibited occupants from keeping dogs that weighed more than 25 pounds. He was a U.S. Air Force veteran, who developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of a sexual assault he enduring during his military service.
In 2008, the resident got a dog over the 25-pound weight limit. Although no medical professional prescribed the dog initially, the resident said his psychiatric symptoms improved with the dog’s presence, so much so that he began to rely on him to help him manage his condition.
Two years later, the community demanded that the resident remove the dog because it exceeded the weight limit. In response, the resident submitted a letter from his treating psychiatrist, who stated that the dog was an emotional support animal: Due to mental illness, the resident had limitations with social interactions and coping with anxiety and stress, and the dog helped alleviate those difficulties. A few days later, the resident submitted a second note in which the psychiatrist explained that the resident had a therapeutic relationship with this specific dog: As an emotional support animal, the dog served to ameliorate the resident’s otherwise difficult-to-manage day-to-day psychiatric symptoms.
In response, the community sent the first of three letters requesting additional information, including the nature of his disability and how it limited a major life activity, details about his treatment, the specific training the dog received, and why the resident needed a dog over 25 pounds for an equal opportunity to use and enjoy his dwelling.
The resident responded with a third letter from his psychiatrist revealing the nature and cause of the disability: anxiety related to military trauma. The doctor explained that the condition limited the resident’s ability to work directly with other people, a major life activity. He said that the resident was able to work at home with the assistance of his emotional support animal; otherwise, his social interactions would be so overwhelming that he would be unable to perform work of any kind.
Soon afterward, the resident filed his own statement, this time claiming an additional disability related to his knees. The community sent a second letter requesting detailed information about his disabilities, treatment, the dog’s training, and specifically why he needed an oversized animal for his disabilities.
When he didn’t respond, the community sent a third letter, requiring a sworn statement from the psychiatrist for even more detailed information about the disability, medications, treatment, need for the oversized dog, and its specific training. He was given a month to respond or remove the dog; otherwise, the community would be forced to pursue arbitration.
Rather than responding, the resident filed complaints with HUD and the state, and then sued the community for failure to make a reasonable accommodation in violation of fair housing law.
In pretrial proceedings, the community unsuccessfully argued that it had never denied his request for a reasonable accommodation. The court disagreed, ruling that the community’s indeterminate delay, evidenced by escalating requests for information, amounted to constructive denial of the resident’s request. The court said that the demand that he remove the dog if he didn’t provide the community with information it was not entitled to receive amounted to a denial of his request for accommodation.
After a two-day trial, the jury found for the resident and awarded him $5,000 in damages. The court ordered the community to pay nearly $130,000 in attorney’s fees, but refused to issue a permanent order about the dog since the community already said it could stay. Both sides appealed.
Judge for Yourself
Was the community legally required to let the resident keep a dog over its weight limit? Did the community ask for more information than necessary to evaluate the resident’s request to keep the dog as an emotional support animal?
Write down your answers on a separate piece of paper, then turn to Coach’s Answers & Explanations to see what the court decided.
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ANIMAL—BREED RESTRICTIONS
Resident Asks for Exception to No-Pet Policy to
Keep Dog as Emotional Support Animal ...
Community Says Request Unreasonable
Because of County Ordinance Banning Pit Bulls
The Dispute: The community has a no-pet policy, but the resident requests a reasonable accommodation to keep his dog as an emotional support animal. The community says the request is unreasonable because the dog is a pit bull, a prohibited breed under local law.
Editor’s Note: Since this case remains in litigation, the facts are in dispute, but here’s the gist of the story based on the allegations in the complaint.
What Happened: The resident lived in a condominium community, which had a no-pet policy, except for birds and fish.
The resident submitted a written request for a reasonable accommodation to the policy so he could keep an emotional support animal. In his letter, the resident explained his disorder and attached a letter from his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist indicated that the resident was diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); he strongly recommended that the community make a reasonable accommodation to allow the resident to keep the dog because of its therapeutic use and function.
In response, the community’s legal counsel allegedly requested additional information to evaluate the request and threatened to take legal action unless it was received within 10 days. The resident got his own lawyer and renewed the request. Though the dog still lived with him, the resident claimed that the community never granted his request for a reasonable accommodation.
The resident sued, accusing the community of violating federal fair housing law by refusing his request to keep an emotional support animal as a reasonable accommodation to the community’s “no-pet” policy.
The community asked the court for judgment without a trial, arguing that the accommodation request was unreasonable because the dog was a pit bull, and pit bulls are banned by ordinance in Miami-Dade County.
Judge for Yourself
Do you think the community was legally required to grant the resident’s request to keep the dog as a reasonable accommodation for his disability? Was the request reasonable if the dog is a pit bull, a breed banned under local law?
Write down your answers on a separate piece of paper, then turn to Coach’s Answers & Explanations to see what the court decided.
REQUEST FOR ACCESSIBLE PARKING
Did Community Refuse Resident’s Reasonable Accommodation Request for Reserved Parking Space?
Resident Says Community Took Too Long to Grant Request
The Dispute: A resident files a fair housing complaint, and then asks the community to reserve an accessible parking space to accommodate his disability. Despite an offer of a temporary accessible space, the resident accuses the community of effectively denying his request because of a five-month delay in offering a permanent parking accommodation.
What Happened: The resident and his partner lived in a condominium unit owned by the partner and another man. Due to a previous back injury, the resident received Social Security disability compensation. According to the resident, he had sporadic flare-ups of his condition, which required him to use a cane or occasionally a wheelchair. He had a disabled parking placard for his vehicle.
The community had a separate parking garage, where two spaces were assigned to each unit. Originally, there were six designated handicapped parking spots, but they had been re-designated for other community uses before March 2010, when the resident and his partner moved in.
In early May 2010, the resident filed a charge with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission alleging disability discrimination. Before filing the charge, neither the resident nor the partner asked the community to assign a handicapped-accessible parking spot to the resident.
The commission asked the community to choose between mediating the charge and undergoing an investigation, according to the homeowner association board’s president. The board chose mediation, but the resident and his partner declined that option, and the commission began its investigation.
About a week after the charge was filed, a member of the board emailed the partner, asking whether the resident had a disability and needed accessible parking. In response, the resident replied that the parking, as such, was fine, but that he might need something more accessible in the event of a flare-up. He confirmed that he had a handicapped placard, but said that they were able to cope with the existing parking situation and that, if that should change, they would notify the board immediately.
The board member responded the same day, explaining that the community was planning to issue a formal handicapped-parking policy and to let the board know if the resident needed something before then.
A few weeks later, the partner emailed the community’s managing agent explaining that the resident was disabled and requesting special considerations for parking in the garage. When he didn’t receive an answer, he sent another request in early June, specifying that the resident needed a space with clear ingress and egress from the building with unfettered access from more than three stairs.
A few days later, the agent responded by explaining that the formal policy was still under review but that the board has temporarily agreed to re-designate one of the original handicap parking spaces for the resident’s use. The agent requested a copy of the handicapped parking placard, a note from the doctor, and a description of parking needed. He also asked the partner to designate which of his two spaces he wanted to exchange so both spots could be properly marked.
In July, the resident submitted the requested documentation, stating that the space should be within 75 feet of the entry door, preferably near a ramp in case he had a flare-up that required use of a wheelchair.
In the midst of these communications, the board met with the commission investigators. The board agreed to provide the resident with a dedicated parking spot, but because of the ongoing investigation, believed that it needed approval by the commission.
The first time the commission formally asked the board to assign the resident a dedicated parking spot was in September, and the spot was assigned the spot near a ramp with aisle access a few weeks later.
The resident sued the community for violating fair housing law and other claims. The community asked for judgment without a trial, but a magistrate judge recommended against it, ruling that the community could be liable for failure to accommodate the resident’s disability by not granting his request for handicapped parking in a timely manner. Although the community eventually reserved a spot for him, the judge said the community waited nearly five months before granting the request.
The community asked the court to override the magistrate’s recommendation and rule in its favor.
Judge for Yourself
Do you think the community should be liable under fair housing law for denying the resident’s request for a handicapped accessible parking space? Did the community take too long before formally providing him with his requested accommodation?
Write down your answers on a separate piece of paper, and then turn to Coach’s Answers & Explanations to see what the court decided.
EXCEPTION TO AGE RESTRICTION FOR DISABLED FAMILY MEMBER
Did Community Discriminate Against Couple Because of Son’s Disability?
Community Says Application Rejected Because Son Didn’t Satisfy Age Restriction
The Dispute: A community restricted residency to individuals 55 and older, but a couple applied to live there with their 42-year-old son, whom they said was disabled and unable to live on his own. The community denied the application because the son didn’t meet the age restriction, but the couple said the community denied them housing because of the son’s disability and refused to relax the age restriction as a reasonable accommodation.
Editor’s Note: Since this case remains in litigation, the facts are in dispute, but here’s the gist of the story based on the allegations in the complaint.
What Happened: The community is a private residential area where the owners of approximately 520 mobile homes lease space from the community. Under the lease, all residents living at the community must be 55 or older, although the management could permit individuals under 55 to live there if their presence was essential to the physical care or economic support of a resident.
In 2008, a couple signed a contract to buy a mobile home from a resident and applied to the community for a lease. They were in their 60s, but they said that their 42-year-old son had to live with them because he has a mental disability and can’t live on his own.
After submitting the application, the wife said she got a call from the community owner, who asked for a letter from the son’s doctor about his disability and if he could be left alone for short periods of time. The couple said they submitted a letter from the son’s treating psychologist, which stated that the son had major depression for many years. In response to concerns about his living alone, the doctor said that the son was disabled but that he qualified for independent living. (Though it didn’t come up at the time, the doctor later testified that this meant that his condition didn’t require him to live in a residential treatment facility.) The doctor explained that the son served as a mental health advocate working with legislators in Albany to advocate for individuals with mental illness.
Soon afterward, the community approved the couple’s application, but denied the application to have their son live with them because he didn’t meet the age restriction.
The couple contacted a fair housing organization, which conducted an investigation and later filed complaints with HUD and the state fair housing agency.
Eventually, the couple sued the community for denying them housing because of their son’s disability and for refusing to provide a reasonable accommodation for his condition.
The case went to trial, where both sides submitted evidence on the claims. At the end of the trial, the community asked the court to rule that it was not liable for violating fair housing law because there was no proof that the son was disabled.
The court ruled in favor of the community, but for a different reason—that there was no evidence that the son’s disability was the reason for the rejection of his parent’s request that he be allowed to live with them.
The couple appealed.
Judge for Yourself
Do you think the community violated fair housing law by refusing to let the couple live there with their son, even though he didn’t meet its age restriction?
Write down your answers on a separate piece of paper, and then turn to the Coach’s Answers & Explanations to see what the court decided.
COACH’S ANSWERS & EXPLANATIONS
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ANIMAL—WEIGHT RESTRICTION
Court Ruling: The federal appeals court in Florida ruled that the community had to pay damages and attorney’s fees for denying the resident’s reasonable accommodation request to keep a dog over the weight limit as an emotional support animal.
Reasoning: The court rejected the community’s claim that it never denied the resident’s accommodation request, ruling that the community effectively denied the request by repeatedly asking for more information than needed to make a decision about whether the resident was entitled to keep the dog.
The FHA doesn’t demand that communities immediately grant all requests for accommodation. Once it knows of an individual’s request for accommodation, the community has the chance to conduct a meaningful review to determine whether it’s required under fair housing law. But the failure to make a timely decision after a meaningful review is effectively the same as an outright denial of a requested accommodation.
In this case, the resident waited more than six months after making the accommodation request before filing his HUD complaint. During that time, the community didn’t respond to his request except to ask for additional information and threaten to file for arbitration if he failed to provide it.
The community insisted that it was still considering the request and that it asked for more information to help determine whether the resident had a disability requiring accommodation. The court disagreed, ruling that the community was not still undertaking meaningful review since the psychiatrist’s three letters had the information the community needed to make a decision: They described the nature and cause of the resident’s PTSD diagnosis, stated that he was substantially impaired in the major life activity of working, and explained that the dog alleviated his symptoms.
That it is incumbent on a skeptical defendant to request documentation or open a dialogue rather than immediately refusing a requested accommodation doesn’t entitle the defendant to extraneous information. Generally speaking, the community needs only the information necessary to apprise it of the disability and the desire and possible need for an accommodation.
The critical inquiries were whether the resident’s PTSD amounted to a qualifying disability and whether the dog’s presence alleviated the effects of the disability. All the other questions about his condition, medication, and treatment exceeded that essential for its critical inquiries.
The court ruled that the resident had a qualifying disability under the FHA. A person has a disability if, among other things, he has a physical or mental impairment that limits one or more major life activities. The parties agreed that he had an impairment and that working was a major life activity—but disagreed whether his disability substantially limited his ability to work. The resident proved that his PTSD left him unable to work in a broad class of jobs. His condition limited his ability to work with other people—and jobs requiring significant social interaction amounted to a broad class of jobs.
He also proved that his requested accommodation was necessary, which means that it afforded him equal opportunity to use and enjoy his unit. To prove that the dog was necessary, the only question was whether having the dog would affirmatively enhance his quality of life by ameliorating the effects of his disability. He proved that it would: His doctor said that without the dog, his social interactions would be so overwhelming that he couldn’t work at all [Bhogaita v. Altamonte Heights Condominium Association, August 2014].
REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ANIMAL—BREED RESTRICTIONS
Court Ruling: The federal court in Florida refused the community’s request for judgment without a trial.
Reasoning: The resident was suing the community for failure to accommodate his disability by allowing him to keep the dog as an emotional support animal. To prove his claim, the resident had to show that he was disabled, he requested a reasonable accommodation, the accommodation was necessary to afford him an opportunity to use and enjoy his dwelling, and the community refused to make the requested accommodation.
The community conceded that the resident qualified for a reasonable accommodation; the only issue was whether his requested accommodation was unreasonable. Specifically, the association argued that the dog was a pit bull—a breed banned by county law—and therefore unreasonable as a matter of law.
The FHA allows for the denial of a reasonable accommodation request for an assistance animal if its behavior poses a direct threat and its owner has taken no effective action to control its behavior to eliminate the risk. The presumption in favor of reasonable accommodations requires the existence of a significant threat—not a remote or speculative one.
Consequently, it was necessary to assess whether the particular animal involved in this case posed a direct threat to the health and safety of other residents or would cause substantial property damage, which couldn’t be reduced by another reasonable accommodation. Further proceedings were needed to decide the issue.
The county ordinance banning pit bulls did not, by itself, make the resident’s request unreasonable. The resident pointed to a HUD notice preventing the application of any breed, height, or weight restriction to assistance animals. The question was whether federal fair housing law overrides any local laws to the contrary.
In general, state laws that interfere with or are contrary to federal laws are invalid. Courts have ruled that federal fair housing law preempts any law that permits a discriminatory practice.
In this case, if the county ordinance were enforced, it would violate the FHA by permitting a discriminatory practice. Failure to allow the resident to live with his assistance animal because of the dog’s alleged breed would deprive him of an equal opportunity to use and enjoy his dwelling.
Therefore, the county breed ban interfered with the objectives of Congress in enacting the FHA, by allowing the community to prevent equal opportunities in housing based on the breed of the dog. Though the parties disputed whether the dog in this case was a pit bull, its breed didn’t matter because the county ordinance was preempted by the FHA [Warren v. Delvista Towers Condominium Assn., Inc., July 2014.
REQUEST FOR DESIGNATED ACCESSIBLE PARKING
Court Ruling: The federal court in Ohio ruled in favor of the community, dismissing the resident’s fair housing claim.
Reasoning: The court ruled that the resident failed to prove that the community denied him an accommodation or that the delay in providing the dedicated parking space with ramp access was so unreasonable as to amount to a denial.
The court pointed out that the resident filed his discrimination complaint before he ever requested any accommodation from the community—or even told them about his disability. When the community first asked him about his disability, he said he was able to cope with the existing parking situation. A few weeks later, his partner said he needed special consideration for parking needs but didn’t describe what those needs were. Two days after he offered some specifics about the requested space, the board agreed to temporarily designate a spot for his use and informed him that it was working on a formal parking policy but hoped that the temporary space would fulfill his needs. This was not—and could not be viewed as—a denial of his accommodation request. Furthermore, it was not for another month that the resident first mentioned additional requirements for his parking accommodation.
The community’s delay in formally designating the parking space did not amount to a denial of his requested accommodation. By the time his request crystallized to include a ramp and other requirements, the community had already agreed to designate a temporary space for his use, pending its adoption of a formal policy and the commission’s approval of a permanent parking accommodation. Any resulting delay was due to the community’s decision to work through the commission, which couldn’t be considered as an effort to stonewall the request, especially because it was the resident’s choice to involve the commission before asking the community for an accommodation [Turner v. The American Building Condominium Corp., Inc., September 2014].
EXCEPTION TO AGE RESTRICTION FOR DISABLED FAMILY MEMBER
Court Ruling: The federal appeals court in New York reversed, ruling that further proceedings were needed to determine whether the community violated fair housing law.
Reasoning: The court said that the case should have gone to the jury to decide whether the community discriminated against the couple because of the son’s disability. The community denied the claim, but considering the evidence in a light most favorable to the family, the jury could have believed the mother, who said that the owner expressed concern about whether the son could be on his own for limited periods of time when his parents, with whom he would be living at the community, were away on vacation. She also said that after denying the son’s application, the owner told her that he didn’t need any trouble in the park like that, referring to her son’s emotional illness.
The court also ruled that the jury should consider whether the community was liable for failure to make an exception to its age restriction as a reasonable accommodation for the son’s disability. The jury could have found that the son had a mental illness that, even though he took his medications as prescribed, prevented him from working and that unless he lived with his parents, he was prone to not taking his medication and becoming suicidal. Though the community wasn’t given details about the course and history of his condition, the jury could have found that it was sufficiently informed about his disability and need to live with his parents.
On the other hand, the jury could have sided with the community on both claims. With respect to the accommodation claim, the jury may not have been persuaded that, based only on the parents’ statements and the doctor’s letter, the community knew or should have known that the son’s mental illness required him to live with them. Since the jury could have resolved the case in favor of either side, the case had to go back for further proceedings [Olsen v. Stark Homes, Inc., July 2014].