Genevieve and William Timmons began their tenancy of a ground-floor apartment at Cobblestone Square in September 2011. Kingsley-Johnston, Inc., is a property management company responsible for managing Cobblestone Square, with Deanna Johnston as its president. During her tenancy, Genevieve had multiple disabilities that affected her mobility. In 2013, Genevieve Timmons began using a motorized scooter regularly. By March 2017, Genevieve was incapable of leaving the apartment on her own by traversing the stairs at the main entrance of the apartment. Instead, she used her scooter to travel between her apartment and the parking lot through the patio door and across the lawn. During a discussion, Johnston told Genevieve that she was not permitted to use the scooter, as it was a serious liability concern.
In early October 2017, a representative from CNY Fair Housing, a nonprofit organization, sent Johnston a formal request for accommodation on behalf of Genevieve to continue using her scooter to travel between her apartment and the parking lot. Johnston denied the request because she did not consider it a reasonable accommodation. Johnston explained that Genevieve’s use of the scooter on the lawn presented “a clear safety and liability concern,” particularly during wet or snowy weather. Johnston claimed that she consulted with a contractor who estimated that it would cost \($30,000\) to install a sidewalk for Genevieve Timmons and an average of \($1,200\) per year to maintain it. Johnston did not deem this option reasonable either, given the expense involved. CNY and Johnston went back and forth about possible accommodations for Genevieve before negotiations totally broke down. Genevieve sued Kingsley-Johnston for violating the Fair Housing Act by failing to provide reasonable accommodations for her disability.
JUDGE KAHN The FHA, as amended by the Fair Housing Amendments Act in 1988, prohibits housing providers from discriminating against residents because of their disability. Among the discriminatory practices prohibited is “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford … person[s] [with disabilities] equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” Defendants only argue that Plaintiff’s requested accommodation was not reasonable. Thus, the Court focuses on whether Plaintiff’s request was reasonable.
A reasonable accommodation is “one that gives the otherwise qualified plaintiff with disabilities meaningful access to the programs or services sought.”
“Once the plaintiff has demonstrated that there is a plausible accommodation … the defendant bears the burden of proving that the requested accommodation is not reasonable.” Determining whether a requested accommodation is reasonable “requires a complex balancing of factors” and is “highly fact-specific.”
Here, Defendants do not dispute that Plaintiff has met her initial burden to propose a plausible accommodation. As Plaintiff correctly points out, the requested accommodation only required Defendants to let her continue using the scooter as she had already been doing. Thus, to succeed in their summary judgment motion with regard to Plaintiff’s failure-to-accommodate claim, Defendants must prove that there is no genuine dispute of fact on whether Plaintiff’s request was not reasonable. But, for the following reasons, the Court finds that Defendants have failed to do so.
Under the FHA, a requested accommodation is not reasonable when it poses “an undue hardship or a substantial burden on the housing provider.” Defendants argue that the accommodation requested by Plaintiff was not reasonable because operating a motorized scooter on uneven terrain is “inherently dangerous” and would expose them to “serious liability concerns,” particularly in wet or snowy weather. Defendants explain that, as property managers, they “have a duty to maintain level and clear walkways from the parking lots to the apartment buildings. Failure to do so may lead to liability should a tenant or guest injure himself or herself on a walkway which is not properly maintained or cleared of snow or ice. For this reason, Cobblestone Square does not permit tenants on the ground floor apartments to use their patio doors as a primary means of ingress and egress from the apartments to the parking lots.” Defendants cite a letter from Cobblestone Square’s insurance representative, who expressed safety concerns after seeing Plaintiff driving her scooter on the lawn during an insurance inspection.
To demonstrate that operating a motorized scooter on uneven terrain is “indisputably dangerous,” Defendants refer to a training guide from the National Institute for Rehabilitation Engineering that warns scooter users against various safety risks. Defendants also suggest that the federal government, too, has realized the potential danger of operating scooters, as the joint statement by the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development notes that “[a] reasonable accommodation can be conditioned on meeting reasonable safety requirements, such as requiring persons who use motorized wheelchairs to operate them in a manner that does not pose a risk to the safety of others or cause damages to other persons’ property.”
However, Defendants have failed to demonstrate that providing Plaintiff with this accommodation would impose any “undue hardship” or “substantial burden” on them. Other than “liability concerns.” Defendants present virtually no “financial [or] administrative burden” in allowing Plaintiff to continue using her scooter through the patio exit. With regard to the insurance letter, nowhere did the insurance representative suggest that Defendants’ insurance would terminate or increase in cost if Plaintiff continued to use her scooter. No evidence suggests that Defendants’ insurer was aware that Genevieve Timmons could not traverse the stairs due to her disabilities or that she had requested to use the patio door and scooter as an accommodation. It is unclear whether and to what extent Defendants’ insurance would be adversely affected if they had granted the accommodation, or how the insurer would compare the risk of Genevieve Timmons using the scooter with that of her taking the stairs. Thus, a genuine issue of fact exists as to whether the proposed accommodation would create an undue financial burden.
Moreover, liability concerns alone, without any individualized assessments based on reliable objective evidence, amount to no more than speculation.
Defendants argue that, unlike the cases cited by Plaintiff where defendants relied on “unwarranted speculation” or “blanket stereotypes” in denying the accommodation requests, the requested accommodation here was “indisputably dangerous” and posed safety risks to both Plaintiff and other tenants.
Here, Defendants have expressed general safety concerns associated with operating a scooter but have provided no evidence that Genevieve Timmons, by operating her scooter, posed any real threats to the safety of anyone. In fact, the proof is to the contrary, as Genevieve Timmons has been using her patio exit and scooter for well over two years without incident. Thus, the Court finds that Defendants have failed to establish that the requested accommodation would impose undue hardship on them. Since there exists a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Plaintiff’s requested accommodation was reasonable, the Court must deny Defendants’ summary judgment motion with regard to Plaintiff’s failure-to-accommodate claim.
CRITICAL THINKING:
What are the primary facts of this case? Is there any missing information you would call for to better enable you to evaluate the court’s reasoning?
ETHICAL DECISION MAKING:
Who are the stakeholders affected by any adherence or lack of adherence to the reasoning in this case?