I write often on this blog about cooperating with fair housing investigators who work for HUD or a state, city, or county housing anti-discrimination agency. From management’s perspective, developing a good working relationship with the investigator assigned to a case remains important. In my experience, management must prove our innocence. While that sounds a little backward, such is the way of the world in fair housing litigation. Management understands that burden and we typically welcome it.
But, there is indeed another reason to work on a case professionally and early with an investigator: because our best chance to win is when the case is being initially reviewed and considered. I just saw some statistics on appeals which reminded me why our best chance is to win at the first possible stage: the national average of getting a case reversed on appeal is less than 10%. In other words, if a case goes to court, the losing side has less than a 10% chance of getting the appeals court to reverse the decision below. Those are sobering [and expensive] numbers (not just for professional apartment management companies, but for ANY party who loses a case and wants to file an appeal).
This is just further evidence why we work so hard with the line investigators to get the right decision the first time.
Just A Thought.