Fair Housing Act harassment case fails on the merits

In this Fair Housing Act case, the plaintiff -- who operates a home for disabled adults -- sues people who want the residential portion of the home shut down. The home for disabled adults takes up one-half the residence. The defendant-neighbors live in the other half of the residence. This is an ugly case, but the defendants win the case on summary judgment thanks to defendants' video evidence of problems at the home.

The case is Birch Family Services v. Wlody, a summary order issued on May 10. The Wlody's live in the part of the residence that does not house the home for disabled adults, known as Birch Family Services. "For over five years, the Wlodys photographed and videotaped Birch’s disabled residents and African-American  staff to document excessive noise, alleged abuse of the residents, and other complaints." Birch sued the Wlodys for housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits disability harassment of residents in a home like this. Birch also says defendants were discriminating against the race of the staff, also in violation of the FHA. It certainly does not look good that the Wlodys were videotaping the residents and trying to document noise and other matters. But they win the case on summary judgment because the Court of Appeals finds that 

Defending themselves, the Wlodys offer up their videotapes as evidence to show they were not harassing anyone but trying to document wrongful conduct in the Birch home, claiming it shows that Birch's staff was abusing and not supervising residents, noise complaints, cars idling in the street, and cars blocking the Wodlys' driveway. This evidence convinces the Court of Appeals (Parker, Lee and Park) that defendants were not discriminating against anyone. 

In an effort to avoid summary judgment, Birch points to evidence that one defendant texted Birch, stating "we feel like we live next to an asylum." Defendants also allegedly made racial comments about the Birch's staff. This will not persuade the Court of Appeals to certify this case for trial. "This evidence, combined with the fact that Birch did not show that the Wlodys’ proffered reasons were unworthy of credence, leads to the conclusion that no rational jury could find that the Wlodys’ conduct of taking pictures and videos  was  motivated  by  unlawful  discrimination  by  a  preponderance  of  the evidence.We thus find that Birch did not meet its burden of demonstrating pretext and affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment on Birch’s FHA claim.: