On October 7, 2020 HUD filed a charge of discrimination against Fairfield Properties and Pinewood Estates at Commack Condominium because they denied an accommodation for two emotional support dogs. FHEO No. 02-17-5246-8. The Charge includes the facts, which don’t seem to be disputed. It does not include an explanation of how HUD thinks these facts constitute discrimination, but HUD’s thinking on the subject can be inferred from the Charge and shows why landlords and condominium…

The recent decision from Judge Vanessa Bryant in Connecticut Fair Housing Center v. CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions, LLC, 2020 WL 4570110 (D.Conn. August 7, 2020) was followed only weeks later by HUD’s final regulation on disparate impact claims, 85 FR at 60288, September 24, 2020.¹ The CoreLogic decision’s most important holding was that a third party tenant screening service could be liable for providing information that had a disparate impact on a protected class, but Judge Bryant’s…

On October 2, while the news covered President Trump’s admission to Walter Reed for treatment of Covid-19, Congressmen Lou Correa (D-CA) and Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced the bipartisan Online Accessibility Act, which they claim will “increase website accessibility and reduce predatory lawsuits filed against businesses.”¹ Will it work? That’s a reasonable question. Let’s start by looking at the problems with the law of website accessibility as it exists today. From a business standpoint the situation is somewhere between…

The title of today’s blog recognizes the gift bestowed by Judge Nannette Brown on everyone interested in the ADA in all its many details. Bailey v. Bd. of Commissioners of Louisiana Stadium and Exposition Dist., 2020 WL 5309962 (E.D. La. Sept. 4, 2020) is the latest of Judge Brown’s decisions concerning the dispute over stadium seating in the Superdome. Written after trial, the 64 page decision methodically dissects the law concerning concerning which standards apply…

The August 24 decision in Naminsnak et al v. Uber Technologies, Inc. Case No. 18-15860 (9th Cir. August 24, 2020) is interesting for many reasons, so I’m glad my fellow blogger Bill Goren forwarded the opinion.¹ The short version is that Uber was sued because it did not make accessible cars available in New Orleans and failed in its effort to force the case into arbitration. How the case and court got to that conclusion is…

I was planning on another review of recent decisions in the ADA and FHA world but was struck by the number of recent decisions about voting and the ADA. They are a pleasant break from the usual run of ADA cases motivated by nothing but the greed of the plaintiffs’ bar, and while they may cause political disagreements they do illustrate some key issues under the ADA. The limits of accessible technology and deciding what…

Lainey Feingold, a long time and well know advocate for those with disabilities, referred to my earlier blog on website plug-ins* that promise accessibility in her latest blog. HONOR THE ADA: AVOID WEB ACCESSIBILITY QUICK-FIX OVERLAYS. That was nice, but even better was the way she collected other sources on website plug-ins and their problems, making her blog well worth reading for anyone interested in this subject. Of course no matter how much you study…