$450,000 Settlement and Significant Injunctive Relief reached by Relman & Colfax in Fair Housing Complaint Against Regional Developer
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Relman & Colfax represented Ernesto and Corina Zuniga and Housing Equality Center of Pennsylvania in housing discrimination complaints alleging that CM Bucks Landing 120, LLC, and Residential Management (NY), Inc. employed three separate policies that had unlawful disparate impacts on groups protected under the Fair Housing Act. Those were: (1) a policy requiring all adult residents to have a social security number, which has a discriminatory impact based on national origin; (2) over-restrictive occupancy limitations, which have a discriminatory impact based on familial status; and (3) a policy requiring all applicants to certify they have no “criminal history” and a blanket ban on renting to any individual with a felony conviction; which have a discriminatory impact based on race.
The companies agreed to settle by entering into a conciliation agreement providing for the payment of $450,000 for damages and legal fees and for the replacement of the policies alleged to have discriminatory impacts. First, the companies will no longer require all applicants to have a Social Security number and will now accept a wide range of documents for identity verification. Second, they agreed to revise their occupancy policy to conform with HUD guidelines. Finally, they will adopt a new criminal history policy that limits the kinds of convictions that may be considered in rental decisions and provides for individual consideration of any applicant with a conviction for one of those offenses.
A copy of the Conciliation Agreement can be found here.
Relman & Colfax is the foremost prestigious fair housing law firm in the country. Relman & Colfax has represented and is currently representing the FHC in groundbreaking litigation with nationwide impact. The litigation team in the case above included Reed Colfax, Sara Pratt and Ted Olds.
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