On March 13, 2014, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida entered its 33 page Omnibus Order in Sabal Palm Condominiums of Pine Island Ridge Association, Inc. v. Fisher, et al. The term “Omnibus” was used in the title of this order to reflect the myriad of issues addressed by the Court. The Sabal Palm opinion addresses a disabled owner’s request for an assistance animal trained to alleviate problems caused by the owner’s multiple sclerosis. In this case, Fisher’s (the unit owner) request for an assistance animal was related to an observable disability where copious information was provided to Sabal Palm at its request to substantiate the need for the assistance animal. Rather than grant the reasonable accommodation, Sabal Palm sued Fisher for declaratory judgment to have the trial court determine whether Sabal Palm was required to grant the reasonable accommodation and to decide the extent of the medical records that it was entitled to receive. In response, Fisher counterclaimed against Sabal Palm alleging discrimination and also sued the president in his PERSONAL capacity. Thereafter, motions to dismiss were served. Attention is now turned to the instructional value of this resulting Omnibus Order.
First and foremost, the Court recognized that when it comes to emotional support assistance animal requests there is plenty of abuse being suffered by housing providers. The Court even sites to a report “prepared for a Senate Informational Hearing on the subject of fake service [sic, assistance] dogs” and acknowledges that this is a growing problem. The Court even went so far as to state that “there is some reason to be skeptical of requests to keep a dog as an accommodation for a disability in certain cases, particularly cases where the dog assists the disabled person by rendering emotional support.” However, Sabal Palm treated Fisher with unjustifiable skepticism when it decided to file the lawsuit for declaratory judgment against her. By that time, the Court seems to have concluded, that Sabal Palm should have granted the request for the accommodation based on all of the information in Sabal Palm’s possession.
Lessons to be learned from this case include:
1) A board member can be sued in their personal capacity for a violation under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) where the board member acted recklessly, in bad faith, or with wanton and willful disregard to human rights. (So, while the Court allowed Fisher’s cause of action against the president, in his personal capacity, it is not yet known whether the president will be found liable. Rather, the Court merely perfected the cause of action and in so doing, did not dismiss the claim.)
2) In examining these types of discrimination cases, the Court referred to another seminal case, Oberbrook, where that court looked at three factors to analyze: i) the extent of housing providers delay and obstruction of the request by the filing of a lawsuit by the housing provider, ii) the state of the law at the time the lawsuit was filed, and iii) whether the housing provider’s delay in granting the accommodation request had the effect of depriving the disabled person their requested accommodation.
3) In response to a request for a reasonable accommodation, a housing provider may request reliable disability-related information that i) is necessary to verify the person meets the FHA’s definition of disability, ii) describes the need for the accommodation, and iii) shows the relationship between the person’s disability and the need for the requested accommodation.
4) When the disability is readily apparent, the housing provider may not request additional information about the requestor’s disability. When the disability is not obvious, the housing provider may request more information limited to precisely what is not obvious.
5) A request for a reasonable accommodation can be constructively denied based on delay in rendering the decision.
6) Punitive damages are available under the FHA for a “refusal to accommodate” claim if a court finds that a discriminatory housing practice has occurred or is about to occur.
In the Sabal Palm case, it was found that Sabal Palm had more than enough information to conclude that Fisher was entitled to the requested accommodation. Yet, Sabal Palm requested even more information. The Court also found that the FHA’s Joint Statements (where the interpretation of the FHA of both the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Justice can be found) did not support Sabal Palm’s decision to sue for a declaratory judgment. Likely, this was due to the fact that the Court believed Fisher had more than met her burden to substantiate her disability and her need for the assistance animal.