Daily Development for Tuesday, October 26, 1999

By: Patrick A. Randolph, Jr.
Professor of Law
UMKC School of Law
Of Counsel: Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin
Kansas City, Missouri
randolphp@umkc.edu

Thanks to H.E. Peterson for this one:

FAIR HOUSING; DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHILDREN: Indiana interprets state fair housing law to permit refusal to rent trailer space to families with more than two children.

Indiana Civil Rights Commission vs. County Line Park, No. No. 27A02-9901-CV-29, http://www.ai.org/judiciary/opinions/completed/10259901.jjr.html Ind. App. 10/25/99)

Plaintiffs, who had four children, acquired a mobile home and attempted to rent space in defendant's mobile home park. The park refused to rent to plaintiffs on the grounds that the park had an established policy that it would not rent to families with more than two children. (The court does not indicate whether the park rules also prohibited occupancy by more than four adults - but this is would so obviously lead to a different result that the editor concludes that the policy probably extended to adults as well.)

The trial court granted summary judgment for defendants and awarded defendants attorneys' fees. That's right - man bites dog!! A trial court found for a trailer park owner in a fair housing case involving alleged discrimination against families with children.

Even bigger news - the appeals court affirmed.

The statute provides as follows:

Ind. Code § 22-9.5-5-1(a) provides:

A person may not refuse to sell or to rent after the making of a bona fide offer, refuse to negotiate for the sale or rental of, or otherwise make unavailable or deny a dwelling to any person because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, disability, or national origin.

Despite the express policy of the trailer park owners to exclude families with more than two children, the court held that the owners did not violate the Indiana Fair Housing Act. The court commented that a basic motive behind the Act was to prohibit "adults only" enclaves except under specific conditions. But the defendants in this case did not create a prohibited "adults only" environment because clearly the trailer park did permit children. The court, indicating that this was an issue of first impression, commented: "The management of mobile home parks must be cognizant of the limitations of sewer and other utility systems in these types of homes, as well as the quality of park life in general. In doing so, it may need to establish occupancy limits."

The court acknowledged that it is likely that Plaintiffs would be held to have violated federal law, but notes that there is a difference between the federal definition of "family status," and the state definition (although the court barely elaborated as to why it so concluded.) Under the circumstances, the court concluded not only that there was no basis for finding a violation but also that the trial court was justified in awarding the plaintiffs attorneys' fees.

In addition, the court concluded that in any event there was no basis for imposing liability upon the individual managers of the trailer park, as they were operating in their capacity as officers and employees of a corporation that they (apparently) owned. The court apparently reached this issue because there appeared to be one more unresolved count, based upon discrimination on the basis of a disability of one of the children.

Comment: As indicated the real news here is that an American court has refused to find housing discrimination when a trailer park refused to rent to children. The interpretation itself, of course, is also interesting, although the editor had difficult discerning exactly what the court was saying made the Indiana statute different. Of course, the whole issue may be mmot if the plaintiffs now elect to such under federal law. It's not clear why they failed to use federal law in the first place. Perhaps Fair Housing mavens on DIRT can clarify the issue.

Readers are urged to respond, comment, and argue with the daily development or the editor's comments about it.

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