Douglas v. Kriegsfeld Corp.

849 A.2d 951, 2004 D.C. App. LEXIS 231, 2004 WL 1065488

• Court: District of Columbia Court of Appeals
• Decided: May 13, 2004
• Docket: 02-CV-711
• Status: Published

Opinions

FERREN, Senior Judge:

This case presents the question under the federal Fair Housing Act (and related District of Columbia regulations) whether the trial court erred in denying a tenant the opportunity to defend her landlord’s action for possession by claiming discrimination — more specifically, the landlord’s failure to provide a “reasonable accommodation” — based on her alleged “handicap” (mental impairment). We rule for the tenant and thus reverse and remand for a new trial.

I.

On August 23, 2001, Kriegsfeld Corporation (landlord) served Evelyn Douglas (tenant) — a beneficiary of federally subsidized “Section 8” housing who was current with her rent — with a thirty-day notice to “cure or quit” for violation of her covenant to “maintain the apartment in clean and sanitary condition.” Later, at trial, the landlord presented evidence that the apartment had a foul odor emanating into the rest of the building; that the toilet was frequently filled with feces and urine; and that garbage, rotting food, and dirty laundry were strewn about. An exhibit to the tenant’s earlier, unsuccessful motion for summary judgment confirmed that as a result of this situation the landlord’s representative, Ms. Deborah Reid, had referred the tenant to St. Elizabeths Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

The tenant neither cleaned up the premises nor vacated the property, and the landlord accordingly filed an action for possession on November 30, 2001. Through counsel, the tenant filed a timely answer and asked for a jury trial. Her answer included a general denial, a challenge to the validity of the notice to cure or quit, and a defense of discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act. She also proffered a defense and counterclaim under the D.C. Human Rights Act (not at issue on appeal).

Soon thereafter, on February 5, 2002, counsel for the tenant sent a letter to the Director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) “requesting a reasonable accommodation under the Federal Fair Housing Act” for a “disability (mental),” namely a “mood disorder,” that affected the tenant’s ability to keep the apartment “safe and sanitary.” Counsel added: The “District of Columbia Government is prepared to assist her with cleaning the apartment.” DCRA never took action.

On February 20, 2002, two weeks after his letter to DCRA, counsel for the tenant wrote counsel for the landlord “requesting a reasonable accommodation in complying with provisions of [the tenant’s] lease.” In this letter — filed with the trial court as Exhibit 2 to the tenant’s motion for summary judgment and discussed in counsel’s supporting memorandum — counsel stated, more specifically:

Ms. Douglas suffers from a mood disorder (mental illness). She is on SSI disability. She has been assigned a case worker with the District of Columbia government and she is an outpatient at a city operated mental health/substance abuse clinic.

... The District of Columbia government has advised me that they are prepared to assist her with her problems because it is their opinion as well that Ms. Douglas would benefit from intervention and a reasonable accommodation.

According to counsel for the tenant’s un-contradicted assertion in the trial court, landlord’s counsel — who has acknowledged receipt — never responded to this letter.

Later, at a pretrial conference, the court asked for briefs on the question whether the tenant should be permitted to present her discrimination defense based on the landlord’s failure to make a “reasonable accommodation” of her alleged mental disability.¹ Thereafter, the trial court denied the tenant’s motion for summary judgment, and on the day set for trial, June 17, 2002, the court heard testimony and argument on the reasonable accommodation issue outside the presence of the jury. The trial court conducted this hearing primarily to find out whether the tenant’s proffered “mental health experts” were qualified to testify, and whether their testimony would support a finding that the tenant’s mental illness caused her to leave the apartment in an unclean, unsanitary condition — the factual predicate required for a “reasonable accommodation” defense.

After the tenant’s proffered experts had testified, but before the trial court ruled, the landlord’s counsel acknowledged to the court that counsel for the tenant (presumably sometime after his letter of February 20) had requested, as an accommodation, a stay of eviction that would permit an agency of the D.C. government to “clean up” the apartment. The landlord’s counsel further acknowledged: “I did not specifically talk to [tenant’s ■ counsel] about that until a couple of weeks ago,” around the first of June 2002, “when I told him that his proposal simply lacked any specifics for us to really make an evaluation on.” Landlord’s counsel added his opinion that tenant’s counsel “had no authority to speak for the D.C. government,’’and thus could not assure that the apartment would be cleaned or, if so, how long it would stay that way. Earlier in the proceeding, landlord’s counsel had stated his bottom-line position, communicated to tenant’s counsel on June 14, three days before trial: “We are willing to allow Ms. Douglas to stay in the unit through the end of August, the beginning of September, but the landlord would definitely request possession of the unit after a period of time” — whether the apartment was clean or not.

The court was troubled that no one at the hearing had asked the tenant’s experts, who were in a position to know, exactly “what the possibilities [were] for Adult Protective Services to do cleaning of this apartment.” Whereupon counsel for the tenant proffered that the District government had a fund for paying contractors to clean apartments for the disabled, and that his expert was in a position to use this fund to help the tenant. Counsel made clear, however — and the court appeared willing to accept — that the District government would not incur the cleaning expense without assurance that the tenant could remain in her apartment as long as it stayed clean; the District would not restore the apartment merely for the landlord’s benefit. Accordingly, it was clear to everyone that the tenant was seeking, as a “reasonable accommodation,” a stay of eviction for a period long enough for the District government to clean the premises and thus cure the tenant’s breach of the lease. Significantly, moreover, counsel for the tenant was unequivocal in conceding that if the requested delay, coupled with government intervention, “didn’t work out” — meaning that if the apartment became filthy again either because the tenant (after counseling) failed to change her ways, or because the government failed to continue its cleaning services on the tenant’s behalf — the landlord would have an acknowledged remedy, eviction. According to counsel, a reasonable accommodation, once given, need not be repeated if the tenant or her government protector failed to comply with its terms. In short, the tenant was asking for one brief extension of the “cure” period under the lease, and no more, based on a proffered mental illness that allegedly had caused her to foul the premises unremittingly.

The trial court, after hearing evidence and argument, saw the point clearly and questioned the landlord’s bottom-line position:

[T]his case almost sounds to me like it’s resolvable if the government could make assurances that would satisfy the plaintiff. I mean, I don’t want to put the plaintiffs in an awkward position.... [T]hey have their right to a trial and they have waited now for several months until today’s trial date as well. And I don’t want to speak for them; but it sounds like they feel sorry for the defendant, too, and if they could just — if they could be assured that this place was going to be clean and not posing a danger to other tenants that they might be willing to let this go, or at least to see what happens....

[I]f the place really got cleaned up, and there was some assurance — some reasonable assurance that it was going to be maintained — these people [i.e, the landlord’s representatives] don’t have any — they’re not out for blood. I mean, I don’t think — I don’t know, the client [representative of the landlord] is nodding -with me as if she agrees.

I don’t have the sense that [the client representative of the landlord is] anxious to see this poor woman out on the street homeless. Everybody knows that if she gets evicted in this case, it’s not going to be very easy for her to get another apartment through the Section 8 Program or otherwise.

... I’m just trying to figure out whether there is a way to resolve this case without the need to — without the need to move someone who might not have to be moved in order to satisfy both parties. And there have been these statements made that the Adult Protective Services can provide the services that the landlord presumably would think were necessary, but won’t, because the case is pending. But I mean, if that’s the only impediment to Adult Protective Services going in there and doing the cleaning, both initially and on an ongoing basis, presumably they could [be] disabused of the erroneous view that they shouldn’t act while the case is pending. I mean, why not?

[I]f counsel for the landlord said, look, yes, the case would still be pending, we would agree to such stay for some period of time just to see how things go, but I want to tell you if the place is brought up to an acceptable condition and if you keep it there, you know, we’re okay with that, why would [the District government] have a problem with that? (Emphasis added.)

... I can understand why, hypothetically, [District government representatives] don’t want to send three people in there for two days and clean it up and then have the defendant evicted the next week. But if they have every reason to believe that their work would not be for naught, I would hope that they’re not so tied up in bureaucratic concerns that that would make it impossible.

... I guess in some respects we would have to speculate as to whether [the tenant] would allow these folks in to clean her apartment.

To the court’s final observation the tenant’s counsel replied: “[I]t might take a little bit of effort, it might not take one day, it might take a whole week or two weeks or something like that.”

The trial court adjourned the hearing after announcing that it would rule the next morning on the tenant’s proffered defense “if we are going to trial.” There was no settlement, however. The following day, the court ruled by oral opinion that the tenant could not present a “reasonable accommodation” defense. The jury then heard an essentially defenseless case and found for the landlord (the tenant subsequently was evicted). The tenant appeals from the trial court’s ruling that barred her discrimination defense and from the court’s order upon the jury verdict that resulted in her eviction.²

II.

The trial court rejected the tenant’s disability discrimination defense “for several reasons,” each of which the court found “independently sufficient” for its ruling. First, said the court, the tenant’s “request for an accommodation” — -which was “extremely vague” — came too late, several months after the landlord had served the thirty-day notice to cure or quit and filed the lawsuit. The court acknowledged that it had “equitable authority” to grant relief when a lease violation had not been eliminated during the thirty-day “cure period.” But it would not exercise that authority here because of the tenant’s “apparent refusal to allow people to come into the apartment to do any cleaning” and her resulting failure to cure the lease violation even before trial.

Second, the court opined, the premises were “a direct threat for the health and safety of others who live in the building.” Thus, “almost” as a matter of law under the Fair Housing Act “no accommodation would be reasonable.”

Third, for lack of qualified “expert testimony,” the court found the tenant’s evidence insufficient to demonstrate that she “had a mental disability,” and that this disability “caused her not to maintain her apartment in a clean and sanitary condition.” The trial court conceded that testimony from “a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist” was not necessary; a qualified “social worker or mental health specialist” could suffice. But in the court’s judgment, although each of the tenant’s two witnesses was a mental health professional with the D.C. government, neither was qualified by “education or experience” to “render an opinion” on either the disability or the causation issue.

III.

A.

Before addressing the trial court’s analysis, we believe it will be useful to outline the regulatory scheme that governs this case. First, the Federal Housing Act, as amended in 1988, prohibits a landlord from discriminating (among others) against a tenant of a dwelling because of the tenant’s “handicap.”³ A “handicap” is defined to include a “mental impairment” and even applies to someone who is merely “regarded as having such an impairment,” whether impaired or not.⁴ “Discrimination” includes not only specified acts by a landlord that overtly deny equal treatment, but also a landlord’s “refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford [a handicapped] person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.”⁵ In sum, actions based on a landlord’s perception of mental impairment, not only on the reality of it, can give rise to actionable discrimination; and discrimination can be found even in a landlord’s failure to offer a tenant assistance, not merely in affirmative acts of rejection.

The District of Columbia Human Rights Act employs virtually the same language as that found in the federal Fair Housing Act, substituting the word “disability” for “handicap” while incorporating verbatim the federal wording for discrimination based on “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations” for the disabled.⁶ The Human Rights Act and related regulations also specify prohibited acts for which a discrimination complaint may be filed with the D.C. Office of Human Rights.⁷ However, neither the Act nor the regulations supply criteria or procedure for determining whether a tenant has sought, and the landlord failed to make, a “reasonable accommodation.” Such a procedure is found, nonetheless, in regulations adopted pursuant to a Stipulated Agreement of September 80, 1997 between the District of Columbia and the United States Department of Justice and administered by the District’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA).⁸ Under these DCRA regulations, when a tenant requests a “reasonable accommodation” (not further clarified), DCRA may grant, grant with “specified conditions,” or deny the request. The DCRA Director is given forty-five days (subject to exceptions not relevant here) in which to make a “final decision” in writing, failing which “the request shall be deemed granted” as a “final decision of the District of Columbia government.”⁹

The landlord argues that these D.C. Regulations pertain only to “D.C. Government” housing, not to “private landlords.” The issue thus raised is a difficult one. Some of the language of the regulations themselves arguably applies only to public housing, and indeed the federal government, by insisting that the District adopt suitable regulations, would seem to have primary interest in accommodations in federally-subsidized housing. On the other hand, the federal Fair Housing Act’s “reasonable accommodation” requirement applies to private as well as public housing, and DCRA could well serve as a facilitator of reasonable accommodations by brokering a dialogue between tenant and landlord to that end. As elaborated below, however, a resolution of this issue is not necessary to decision, and thus we leave the answer to another day.

Finally, both the federal Fair Housing Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act also contain an important limitation. Neither “requires that a dwelling be made available to an individual whose tenancy would constitute a direct threat to the health or. safety of other individuals or whose tenancy would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others.”¹⁰

Although the D.C. Human Rights Act virtually tracks the federal Fair Housing Act insofar as the “reasonable accommodation” requirement is concerned, the tenant has proceeded on appeal exclusively under the federal statute, perhaps because the available legal authority is federal case law. We note, however, the virtual congruence of the local and federal statutes in the respect at issue.

B.

We turn, then, to the trial court’s first ruling; that the discrimination defense is barred because the tenant’s “extremely vague” request for a reasonable accommodation — presented months after the landlord had served the notice to cure or quit and filed suit — came too late. The trial court is wrong here. In the first place, the tenant’s requested accommodation- — a brief stay of eviction to permit the District government to clean the. apartment, as it had reportedly agreed to do, was not “extremely vague.” The landlord’s representative testified that he understood what was wanted, and the trial court’s comments at the end of the hearing before trial revealed that the court was clear about it as well. Furthermore, counsel for the tenant had requested a “reasonable accommodation” by letter of February 20, 2002, which the landlord’s counsel declined to answer. At some point thereafter the landlord’s counsel learned, more specifically, what accommodation the tenant was seeking: a brief stay of eviction. But landlord’s counsel acknowledged at the hearing that his client had been unwilling to engage in discussions with the tenant’s representative until early June 2002 — discussions which at any time after February 20 presumably could have brought whatever additional precision to the request was necessary for the landlord to evaluate the tenant’s position. Under all the circumstances, therefore, we can perceive no vagueness, let alone vagueness attributable to the tenant, and the trial court clearly erred in finding otherwise.

Next, as to the timing issue itself, under the Fair Housing Act unlawful discrimination occurs whenever “a dwelling is ‘denied’ to a renter because of that renter’s handicap.”¹¹ Under federal case law interpreting that provision, a denial is deemed to occur during the entire period before a tenant is “actually evicted,” not merely during the shorter cure period specified in the notice to cure or quit.¹² A “reasonable accommodation” defense, therefore, is available at trial, before a judgment of possession has been entered, if the other requirements of the defense are met.

To support its ruling that the tenant’s request for accommodation had come too late, the trial court relied on our Grubb decision¹³ for equitable authority to deny the tenant relief. Grubb, however, was a local law decision addressing a notice to cure or quit unaffected by a Fair Housing Act defense. It has no application to the timing issue under federal law. Furthermore, Grubb itself noted that a “relevant factor in determining whether forfeiture [of a lease] should be ordered is the presence or absence of ‘fair dealing’ by the landlord.”¹⁴ That landlord factor was not considered when the trial court relied on Grubb to deny the tenant’s discrimination defense on grounds of timing. More specifically, the trial court ignored the fact that between February 20 and early June 2002 — a period longer than three months — the landlord’s counsel refused to respond to the tenant’s counsel. (Accordingly, our colleague’s complaint, post at 974, that the tenant’s apartment remained filthy “for a protracted period and after a suit for possession had been instituted” cannot be deemed the fault of a tenant whose counsel was trying, proactively, to take curative steps that the landlord was ignoring.) Absent a vagueness or a timing issue, therefore, the question remains: was the tenant entitled on the facts of record to defend on the landlord’s refusal to make a “reasonable accommodation”?

C.

The court said “no” for a second reason: that this case came within the statutory exception that cancels a landlord’s obligation to offer a reasonable accommodation when the tenancy constitutes “a direct threat to the health or safety of other individuals.”¹⁵ Contrary to the trial court’s understanding, however, federal courts construing the Fair Housing Act have held — and we agree — that this exception does not come into play until after an effort for accommodation has been made and the court has determined, through a probing factual inquiry, that no reasonable accommodation could ameliorate the situation sufficiently to protect the health, safety, and property of others.¹⁶ As one court has succinctly put it, “accommodation of an individual’s handicap must be attempted before denial of the benefits of federal legislation.”¹⁷ Here, however, the landlord never attempted an accommodation, and yet the trial court held — “almost” as a matter of law — that the requested accommodation, even if attempted, could not save the situation for the tenant and others in the building. With all respect, we believe that in denying the very possibility of an effective accommodation, the trial court ruled prematurely that the “health and safety” exception barred the tenant’s defense.

We would agree that, unless the requested accommodation gave adequate assurance that the apartment would be cleaned up promptly — and offered a reasonable prospect for its staying clean — the health and safety exception would likely justify the tenant’s eviction. In this case, however, the trial court did not give “accommodation” the required try — a curious decision in light of the court’s own clear recognition, at the end of the hearing before trial, that the government’s willingness to keep the premises clean would be a complete answer to the landlord’s concerns. So what turned the trial court around?

The court was influenced by its perception of the tenant’s “apparent” refusal to allow others to help with the cleaning — a perception influenced, perhaps, by the fact that the tenant had been eluding counsel and had not shown up for trial.¹⁸ As a result of this perception, in applying the “health and safety” exception, the court concluded “almost” as a matter of law that accommodation would not work. The court’s hedging language — not raised to the level of a concrete finding of fact— theoretically left room for further inquiry into accommodation, especially because (as we shall see below) the tenant was a subject of ongoing Adult Protective Services (APS) intervention, in addition to being the client of an attentive lawyer. Furthermore, the court itself acknowledged that “we would have to speculate as to whether [the tenant] would allow these folks in to clean her apartment” (emphasis added)— hardly a finding that she would not do so. Finally, after the pretrial hearing, the court never questioned counsel’s proffer that the District government would clean the apartment if the court granted the requested stay. And yet the court did not go further. In its ruling, the court concluded to a virtual certainty that no reasonable accommodation was realistically available. In doing so, the court did not understand how thoroughly a tenant’s request for accommodation must be explored- — first by the landlord, then by the court — before a forfeiture order is lawful.

Once a tenant requests a “reasonable accommodation” for a handicap, such as mental impairment, federal law obliges the landlord to “open a dialogue” with the tenant, eliciting more information as needed, to determine whether the requested accommodation is feasible and offers a reasonable possibility of curing the lease violation.¹⁹ In this case, for example, the tenant sought a brief stay of eviction to allow an agency of the D.C. government, APS, to clean the premises. According to the tenant’s proffer, APS had agreed to do so if (but only if) the eviction was put off and the cleaning assuredly would benefit the tenant, not just the landlord. Presumably, too, the stay was to have remained in effect as long as the tenant was keeping the premises clean, either because counseling channeled her behavior toward a reasonably sanitary pattern of housekeeping or, more likely in this case, because the District government continued to clean for her as it was accustomed to doing for the disabled. If these efforts were successful, the law would allow the tenant to stay in her apartment. But if the efforts failed— as tenant’s counsel himself conceded — the tenant could not forestall eviction any longer, given the statutory “health and safety” exception under discussion.

Here, then, is the point: until a landlord makes a good faith, reasonable effort at accommodation, upon request, after learning of a tenant’s mental impairment, the landlord’s continued pursuit of a pending action for possession is a discriminatory act under the Fair Housing Act and the D.C. regulations that implement it. In this case, however, despite the trial court’s own common-sense observation that the landlord would be completely protected if it agreed to a brief stay (extending the “cure” period) while the District government cleaned the premises, the court never connected that observation with its analysis of the Fair Housing Act. That is, the court never perceived the full meaning of the “reasonable accommodation” requirement. It failed to recognize that, before the “health and safety” exception could be invoked, the landlord had a legal duty to “open a dialogue” with counsel for a mentally impaired tenant, not merely a practical responsibility to pursue a settlement for the parties’ mutual benefit. Accordingly, as a consequence of its incorrect belief that the “health and safety” exception could be invoked without concrete findings on the “dialogue” issue, or even on the “tenant cooperation” issue — findings which the trial court never made — the court’s reliance on that exception to justify the eviction was premature and thus a clear error of law.

Our dissenting colleague rejoins by saying that the “reasonable accommodation” defense, as formulated by the tenant, is unavailable as a matter of law because it does not fit the traditional understanding of “accommodation.” Several federal courts, he notes, have said: “ ‘Reasonable accommodation’ means changing some rule that is generally applicable to everyone so as to make its burden less onerous on the handicapped individual.”²⁰ The Fair Housing Act itself, however, defines discrimination more broadly as “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations” not only in “rules” but also in “policies, practices, or services,”²¹ language broad enough to embrace an extraordinary variety of landlord actions that surely covers a brief extension of the “cure or quit” period at issue here. Such extension after a tenant violates a lease covenant may not be the kind of accommodation requested— and required — for most handicaps. But the Fair Housing Act requires reasonable accommodation of “mental illness,”, which, unlike many handicaps, inherently reflects varied, unusual behaviors that will require unique responses — limited, of course, to reasonable ones — if the statutory purpose of “accommodation” is to be effectuated. Here, in any event, the tenant asks for waiver of a “generally applicable” rule/policy/practice, namely “relaxation or bending”of the rigid “cure or quit” timetable in a standard apartment lease, in order to make the cure period (in our dissenting colleague’s words) “less onerous for the person claiming to be handicapped.”²² In our view, this request by the tenant meets the statutory test for “reasonable accommodation.”

It is interesting to note, moreover, that the tenant’s requested accommodation would be considerably less burdensome on the landlord and the other tenants than the typical accommodation recognized in the case law — for example, allowance of pets and priority parking, contrary to the landlord’s standard lease/rule/policy. Here, the tenant seeks only a brief stay of eviction, not the typically requested “relaxation or bending” of a rule for the entire term of the tenant’s lease. Contrary to the scene our colleague paints, the tenant seeks only time to clean the apartment — to cure the lease violation — not the right to keep the apartment filthy to the detriment of others.

D.

We turn, finally to the merits of the tenant’s discrimination defense. Everyone agrees that, in cases such as this where there is no direct evidence of discrimination, the court must employ the burden-shifting approach outlined in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973) (interpreting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964).²³ Under this approach, as adapted to the reasonable accommodation issue under the Fair Housing Act, the tenant must first establish a prima facie case of discrimination by demonstrating that (1) she suffered from a “handicap” (or “disability”), (2) the landlord knew or should have known of the disability, (3) an accommodation of the disability was necessary to permit the tenant’s use and enjoyment of her apartment, and (4) the landlord refused to grant a reasonable accommodation.²⁴ Once a prima facie case is established, the burden shifts to the landlord to “articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason” for seeking eviction.²⁵ If the landlord makes that showing, the burden then shifts back to the tenant to demonstrate that the landlord’s reason was a pretext for discrimination.²⁶ At all times, however, the ultimate burden of persuasion as to discrimination remains with the tenant.²⁷

We recall first — although the trial court did not address the point — that in response to D.C. regulations, the tenant filed a request for a “reasonable accommodation” with DCRA. Counsel’s letter stated that the tenant needed an accommodation for a “disability (mental),” specifically a “mood disorder,” affecting her ability to keep her apartment “safe and sanitary,” and that the “District of Columbia Government [was] prepared to assist her with cleaning the apartment.” DCRA failed to respond within forty-five days and thus, argues the tenant, should be deemed to have granted the request on behalf of the District of Columbia government.²⁸ Assuming, solely for the sake of argument, that these D.C. regulations apply here, and that the tenant’s request was sufficiently detailed to trigger DCRA’s obligation to respond, we need not consider the implications of DCRA’s failure to do so. No one questions the propriety of resolving the matter in Superior Court without participation by DCRA. Furthermore, no one disputes that the tenant has, as much as possible, exhausted any applicable administrative remedy. Finally, as we shall explain below, the tenant prevails on the merits without need to rely on DCRA. Accordingly, we need not resolve the DCRA issue — including the applicability of the cited regulations — that the tenant posits.

Now to the facts. Contrary to the trial court, we conclude that the tenant established a prima facie case satisfying the four McDonnell-Douglas criteria. As to the first of these — a required showing that the tenant suffered from a “handicap” (or “disability”) — the court concluded that the quality of the testimony establishing the tenant’s mental impairment and its effect on the maintenance of her apartment was deficient, because the witnesses were not sufficiently expert to opine on the subject. Eschewing the need for a psychiatrist or psychologist, the trial court observed that a “social worker or mental health specialist” could supply the requisite expert testimony. In acknowledging that possibility, moreover, the court was aware that the tenant’s witnesses, James Sutton and Damon Byrd, were employed full time as mental health professionals by the District of Columbia government. Sutton, who had a masters degree in “mental health,” had been a supervisor with the District’s Emergency Psychiatric Response Division for sixteen years, with personal experience making psychiatric assessments and ordering involuntary civil commitments. Byrd had been a social worker with the District’s Adult Protective Services Unit for three years, with experience investigating abused, neglected, self-neglected, and disabled adults. Both had daily, on-the-job experience with diagnosing persons as mentally ill, and each had had multiple encounters with the tenant, whom Byrd had visited sixteen times. In court, Sutton and Byrd each testified that, in his opinion, the tenant was mentally ill, and that this illness, exacerbated by heavy dependence on alcohol, substantially limited her ability to care for her apartment.²⁹ The trial court refused, nonetheless, to grant any credence to these appraisals. We believe that the court’s ruling, on this particular record, was “manifestly erroneous.” ³⁰

It is not entirely clear whether the court was saying that individuals with Sutton’s and Byrd’s training and experience were not qualified to .opine on “mental impairment” under the Fair Housing Act, or was saying merely that the two witnesses, while perhaps generally qualified for this purpose, did not impress the court enough to justify crediting their testimony in this particular case. A careful reading of the trial court opinion, however, conveys the strong impression that the court was saying the former, because it persisted in noting that these witnesses were unqualified to offer opinions as to the tenant’s particular “diagnosis,” including analysis of specific symptoms of the “mood disorder” ascribed to the tenant in the report of a St. Elizabeth’s Hospital psychiatrist who had assessed her.

In our opinion, the court’s requirement of expert testimony to explain a particular diagnosis of mental illness sets the bar too high for establishing the existence of “mental impairment” under the Fair Housing Act. “Mental impairment” is a generic term that incorporates multiple diagnoses and, on occasion, is susceptible to identification by lay individuals even less trained and experienced than Sutton and Byrd. Indeed, persuasive case law firmly establishes that lay persons—while not competent to offer specific diagnoses— can be qualified to testify generally as to whether a person is suffering from mental illness.³¹ No more than that—no specific diagnosis—is required for a finding of mental impairment under the Fair Housing Act.³²

Nor, in this particular case, is much expertise required to show that the tenant’s mental impairment, combined with alcohol abuse, was a contributing cause of the unsanitary condition of her apartment. We agree with the trial court that, in general, “[t]here are plenty of people who have mental disabilities who can keep their apartments clean,” and that “there are plenty of people who don’t have mental disabilities who don’t keep their apartments clean.” But, on this record, it is not readily apparent what explanation there might be—other than mental illness and alcohol abuse—for the tenant’s filthy apartment.

It is important to note that under the Fair Housing Act, in a provision common to antidiscrimination statutes,³³ a tenant suffers a “handicap,” for purposes of establishing a prima facie case, if the landlord merely perceives or regards the tenant as having a handicap — whether she has one in fact or not — and then discriminates (including refusal to make a reasonable accommodation) solely on the basis of that unconfirmed perception. Neithamer, 81 F.Supp.2d at 4-5 (citing Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h)(3); see supra note 4 and accompanying text). This emphasis on the landlord’s perception of mental illness, for example, rather than on the established reality of it, is further (albeit indirect) evidence of a legislative policy that proof of a diagnosed subset of mental illness is not required before a landlord can be found to have discriminated on the basis of such handicap. In this case, counsel for the tenant proffered expert testimony that his client was mentally ill, rather than simply relying on the landlord’s mere perception of the tenant’s illness (e.g., through Ms. Reid’s referral of the tenant to St. Elizabeths Hospital) to satisfy the first requirement of a prima facie case. This reliance on the evidence that Messrs. Sutton’s and Byrd’s observations could provide, therefore, should not be seen as diminishing, rather than establishing, the tenant’s claimed impairment.

The tenant’s expert mental health specialist, James Sutton, testified that the Department of Mental Health’s Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Services (CPES) had wanted to “bring [the tenant] in involuntarily” for civil commitment but did not have sufficient proof “that she was in imminent danger to herself or others.” Sutton noted that the tenant “didn’t see anything wrong” with her apartment, insisted that “she didn’t have a mental health problem,” and “was waiting for money to be coming from the Navy.” In Sutton’s opinion the tenant “was suffering from some paranoia and some delusions.” He added that he had referred her to a CPES psychiatrist, who had reported that she “was alcohol dependent] and that she suffered from mood disorder, NOS.” Sutton described his understanding of a mood disorder but could not explain the term “NOS” (not otherwise specified). In light of all the foregoing, Sutton had tried to impress on the tenant the urgency of cleaning her apartment, and had told her that in any event “she would have to appear in court.” To which she had replied: “Jesus is going to take care of it.” Sutton was convinced, accordingly, that there was “a relationship between” the tenant’s “mental illness” and “alcohol” abuse and the “deplorable” state of her apartment.

The tenant’s other expert, Damon Byrd, the social worker with Adult Protective Services, described the tenant’s appearance on one occasion as “half naked” and “completely exposed,” with “heavy makeup” that was “caked up and smeared on her face.” Byrd added that the tenant “was in delusional or paranoia behavior” while claiming that “she was in the Navy” and “waiting to receive her money.” He testified that her “insight and judgment” were “poor,” and that “[s]he did not completely understand the hazards of the apartment situation.” In answer to a direct question from the court, Byrd replied, “Do I think she has a mental illness, yes,” adverting to his observations of her “erratic behaviors on numerous occasions” and a diagnosis of her “mood disorder” by Dr. Henerian of the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency team. The court then asked Byrd: “Is a failure to maintain an apartment or other living space in a clean and sanitary way ... a typical symptom of mood disorder or is it just an example of a failure or inability to exercise good judgment”? Byrd replied:

Actually, the connection lies pretty much, in my opinion, with the alcohol. Half the time she’s not sober. So if she spends half her time drinking, she’s not able to effectively clean her apartment, notwithstanding the fact that the apartment is rodent and rat infested. That doesn’t help the situation. So I would say, a combination of — I believe that the alcoholism impacts her diagnosis of mood disorder....

The trial court rejected Sutton as an expert witness, despite his training and experience, because of the court’s perception that Sutton had relied “heavily” on the psychiatrist’s diagnosis of the tenant’s “mood disorder,” without an accompanying psychiatric opinion on “any connection” between that particular disorder and “the condition of her apartment.” The court was particularly influenced by Sutton’s inability to explain the “NOS” part of the “mood disorder” diagnosis. As to Byrd, the court observed:

Mr. Byrd was readily convinced, as I suspect all of us would be, that there was some mental illness that he was dealing with, but he himself testified that he’s not able to render a specific diagnosis, that he’s not qualified to make mental health diagnosis.” (Emphasis added.)

In sum, the court disqualified both Sutton and Byrd as experts because, although they could perceive the tenant’s mental illness in general — as the court itself apparently could, too, from the testimony presented — they could not “render a specific diagnosis” and as a consequence, in the court’s view, could not sufficiently show the connection between the tenant’s illness and her filthy apartment.

The trial court relied for its expert testimony analysis on our decision in American University v. Commission on Human Rights,³⁴ an employment discrimination case we find inapposite here. In American University, we reversed a decision of the D.C. Commission on Human Rights, applying the Human Rights Act, in which the Commission had found discrimination in firing an employee without making a reasonable accommodation for her manic depression. We saw nothing in the record to show that the employee’s job deficiencies were related to her handicap, or that a reasonable accommodation was possible. In the first place, no expert testimony was “offered to prove that complainant’s disablement prevented her from performing the job,”35 whereas in this case witnesses Sutton and Byrd testified that there was a causal relationship between the tenant’s mental illness (exacerbated by alcohol abuse) and the deterioration of her apartment. Furthermore, in American University, the complainant acknowledged that medication “allowed her to behave in a ‘normal’ way,”³⁶ effectively obviating any need for an accommodation by her employer, whereas in this case the tenant’s apartment living could not be normal without intervention. Finally, in American University, the employee herself denied any relationship between her illness and her job performance, in contrast with the case proffered here on the tenant’s behalf (despite her own reported denials).

Accordingly, unlike the record we reviewed in American University, there appears to be “competent evidence” of record in this case — enough for a jury to consider — tending to show the tenant’s “mental impairment,” as defined under the Fair Housing Act, as well as its causal relationship to the unsanitary conditions of her apartment. As we have explained earlier, an ability to make a “specific diagnosis” is not required of an expert qualified to testify for this purpose.

As to the second requirement of a prima facie case, the evidence — as we have seen — tended to show that the landlord knew or had reason to know that the tenant suffered from a mental impairment. The letter of February 20, 2002 from tenant’s counsel informed the landlord’s counsel that the tenant “suffer[ed] from a mood disorder (mental illness),” was “on SSI disability,” and was “an outpatient at a city operated mental health/substance abuse clinic.” Earlier, in fact, the landlord’s own agent, Deborah Reid, after inspecting the apartment several times, had urged the tenant to seek help from St. Elizabeths Hospital, whereupon she did so and received the psychiatrist’s diagnosis of “mood disorder” referred to above. The second requirement accordingly is met.

As to the third requirement, the evidence tended to show that the landlord knew or had reason to know that some kind of accommodation of the tenant’s handicap would have to be made for her to continue living in the apartment without threatening the health and safety of others. Implicit in this requirement is an understanding that the handicap has caused the need for accommodation and that the accommodation requested would eliminate the problem. We have seen in our discussion of the first required showing — that the tenant suffered from a “handicap” (or “disability”) — that the tenant’s mental illness was a contributing cause of the filthy apartment. Moreover, there was no question in the landlord’s — or the court’s — mind what was desired: a stay of eviction for the period reasonably required for the D.C. government to clean up the apartment and, implicitly, to test whether the tenant — by herself or, more likely, with the help of the D.C. government — would keep it clean. Finally, no one disputes that a clean apartment would cure the tenant’s default. The third requirement of a prima facie case is met here.

As to the fourth and final requirement, no one disputes that the landlord declined to grant the requested accommodation — a brief stay of the eviction to allow the apartment to be cleaned and thereby “cure” the lease violation — which even the trial court itself, as quoted above, found reasonable. Indeed, the landlord ignored the tenant’s counsel’s request for over three months, from February 20 until the beginning of June, when the landlord obtained new counsel who, for the first time, was willing to commence a dialogue on the matter two weeks before trial. Even new counsel, however, rejected the proposed stay.

The evidence before the trial court, therefore, was enough for a reasonable trier of fact to find that the tenant had proved a prima facie case of discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, thereby shifting to the landlord the burden of articulating a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for persisting with the eviction. The trial court, however, never imposed that burden on the landlord and thus erred as a matter of law in failing to do so.

IV.

The jury found for the landlord and the tenant was evicted — without benefit of a discrimination defense based on the landlord’s failure to make a reasonable accommodation responsive to the tenant’s alleged mental impairment. The tenant asks this court to reinstate her discrimination defense and remand for a new trial. She does not specify whether, if she prevails, she should be entitled to reinstatement in the premises or — in light of the fact that the eviction was not stayed — she would be limited to recovery of damages. We do not address that question of ultimate remedy, which may or may not become an issue. But we do agree with the tenant that the trial court erred in its rulings, and that this case must be remanded for a new trial in which she may present her discrimination defense to the jury.

RESPONSE TO DISSENT

Our dissenting colleague’s overriding concern appears to be how long it took to get the tenant out of the apartment. Given the law applicable to landlord-tenant relationships, however — including the Fair Housing Act — he assuredly is overreacting. The tenant was under lease without incident for six months (January-July 2001). Then in July the landlord, upon observing filthy, unsanitary conditions in the tenant’s apartment, gave her a notice to cure or quit (August-October 2001). After she defaulted, the landlord filed suit for possession, and the tenant — for the first time represented by counsel — filed her answer requesting a “reasonable accommodation” under the Fair Housing Act (November 2001-January 2002). At this point, all the elapsed time was attributable to the normal requirements of judicial process that landlords risk having to accept from the business they have chosen to pursue.

Within a month, in February 2002, tenant’s counsel wrote the landlord’s counsel that accommodation was required, in particular, for “mental illness” — a condition that the landlord’s agent, Ms. Reid, had perceived at least two months earlier in December 2001, when she successfully referred the tenant to St. Elizabeths Hospital. That letter was brought to the trial court’s attention as Exhibit 2 to the tenant’s motion for summary judgment, referred to in counsel’s accompanying memorandum, and adverted to again in the pretrial court hearing. We agree that, in the interest of expediting the proceedings, counsel’s requested “accommodation” should have been stated more specifically in his letter of February 20. On the other hand, as we have elaborated at length, the tenant’s invocation of the “reasonable accommodation” defense triggered a corresponding legal duty of the landlord to “open a dialogue” on the issue, which the letter of February 20 expressly invited and the landlord ignored for more than three months until June, just before trial. Long before June, moreover, landlord’s counsel either was aware — or could easily have become aware by asking, as the law required of him — that the tenant was seeking only a stay, not withdrawal, of the eviction action. And the requested stay would remain in effect only for the period required to clean the apartment and keep it clean (with the D.C. government’s help), failing which the tenant, as her counsel conceded, would have to surrender the premises.

Contrary to the dissent, post at 992-94, the tenant has never claimed that the landlord lacks a right to judicial redress; the claim is that the tenant’s statutory right to a “reasonable accommodation” warrants a stay of eviction pending resolution of that defense, hardly a remarkable proposition. We do not dispute our colleague’s basic contention that a landlord — if acting in good faith — is not obliged to yield to a tenant’s request for a reasonable accommodation until a judge rules. See post at 991-92 and note 32 That general proposition, however, does not advance the dissent here. In the first place, because the landlord refused to open a dialogue with counsel for a tenant whom the landlord’s own representative, Ms. Reid, perceived to be mentally ill, the landlord’s belief that the tenant had no grounds for accommodation was open to question. But even more to the point, in deferring a dialogue with the tenant that might have led to resolution before a judge could hear the case, the landlord assumed the risk of being wrong about what the law requires and therefore must assume responsibility for the time that elapsed between the tenant’s request for accommodation and the court’s eventual ruling.

Our colleague’s observation that “the judge had nothing before him from the District to confirm that any cleaning would be done,” post at 988, misses the point. Tenant’s counsel proffered in good faith an agreement with the District government. The requested stay, as counsel envisioned it, would have given him no more than a week or two to fulfill that proffer; otherwise, the stay would have been lifted and the eviction accomplished. It is no answer to say that the District had “made no effort to clean the apartment” to date. Post at 989. The limited stay order would have provided an urgent pressure on the government that had not existed before. Furthermore, even the court appeared to understand that, with good reason, the District would not have agreed to help unless its cleaning crew assuredly would benefit the tenant, not just the landlord, via settlement or court order.

All of which brings us to our dissenting colleague’s further observation that the tenant was not available to consider a settlement — a situation, he says, that effectively mooted any possibility of accommodation. Post at 972 n. 2, 973-74, 978-79, 987 n. 26. That observation is nearsighted, however, since no “accommodation”— no proposal by the landlord that would allow the tenant to remain in the apartment — was ever on the table. At no time — even when landlord’s counsel belatedly offered a settlement three days before trial allowing the tenant to stay on through August — would the landlord have tolerated her remaining in the apartment thereafter, even if it were clean and remained so. Thus, any concern about the availability of the tenant (beyond the presence of her legal representative) was premature. Just as tenant’s counsel, under the proposed stay of eviction, had an obligation to assure that the District government cleaned the apartment and, if necessary, helped the tenant keep it clean if she were to remain there, counsel also had a responsibility to ensure her understanding, acceptance, and support of the terms of a court-ordered stay. The court could have conditioned the stay on such follow-through by counsel. Accordingly, if the tenant and the District had cooperated with counsel’s proposal, she could have remained in a clean apartment to the landlord’s benefit as well as her own. If, on the other hand, her prospects for success were “a complete mirage” and she had failed to cooperate, as our colleague says would have happened, post at 986, she would have been out. Under the tenant’s proposal, therefore, the landlord, as the court itself recognized, could not lose. And the matter could have been resolved rather quickly.

The dissent “would not include in the appellate calculus the substance of settlement proposals discussed by the court and counsel” on the record. Post at 987 n. 26 We cannot agree. That discussion confirms that the court understood the tenant’s request for a limited accommodation and perceived it to be reasonable as a matter of objective fact, even though (as the trial court later ruled) such accommodation was not required by law.

We agree with our colleague that the “question whether an accommodation is reasonable ‘is highly fact-specific, and determined on a case-by-case basis by balancing the cost” ’ to the landlord and other affected parties and “ ‘the benefit” ’ to the tenant. Post at 990. As we have shown, however, the cost to the landlord and other tenants of the limited stay, as proposed, would be minimal — indeed, if the accommodation were successful the apartment would be cleaned and remain clean, whereas if it failed the tenant would be evicted. Compared to that cost, best characterized as inconvenience, the benefit to the tenant from the accommodation would be enormous if the court’s terms could be satisfied.

In sum, any delay prejudicial to the landlord between February 2002, when a “reasonable accommodation” for “mental illness” was requested, and June 2002, when the case went to trial, was the fault primarily of the landlord. A cleanup of the apartment could have been accomplished much earlier if the landlord had been willing — as we believe the law required — to test counsel’s proffered accommodation and warrant continuation of the tenancy as long as the apartment remained clean. Had the landlord done so, the apartment would have been cleaned with dispatch, either by the government or, in case of default, by the landlord itself reinstated in the premises. For all the foregoing reasons, therefore, we cannot, nor should our dissenting colleague, fault the tenant for a “protracted period” of unsanitary conditions. Post at 974.

The dissent, of course, questions the very availability of the “reasonable accommodation” defense here. Our colleague asserts that the requested accommodation was vague and untimely (we have explained why neither charge is true). He also argues that the “health and safety” exception to the “reasonable accommodation” defense applies here (we have elaborated, to the contrary, that under federal case law this exception does not come into play until after a reasonable accommodation has been attempted and failed). Next, he claims that the requested accommodation would not — as he says the law requires — relax a “generally applicable rule,” post at 972 (although he does not dispute that the “cure or quit period” at issue here appears in a standard, and thus “generally applicable,” apartment lease). In any event, as we have seen, the statute requires accommodation with respect not only to “rules” but also to a landlord’s “policies, practices, or services.” This language is broad enough, as we have explained at length, to require a landlord, in seeking to enforce a covenant to maintain the premises in a clean and sanitary condition, to grant a brief stay of eviction of a mentally ill tenant in order to allow her apartment to be cleaned and thus save her housing.

Finally, the dissent complains that under this court’s standard of review, we should honor the trial court’s rejection of the tenant’s expert testimony by Messrs. Sutton and Byrd, and thus sustain the court’s ruling that the tenant had not proved her alleged handicap, mental illness. Normally,"of course, we would defer to the trial court’s evaluation of proffered expert witnesses, but, as we have explained, the trial court, committing an error of law, imposed too high a standard of expertise. Despite acknowledging that training as a “psychiatrist” or “clinical psychologist” was not necessary, the court required qualification to testify as to a specific psychiatric diagnosis, “mood disorder NOS,” rather than to the more general condition, “mental illness,” which the Fair Housing Act allows, and which Messrs. Sutton and Byrd, the landlord’s own representative (Ms. Reid), and even the trial court itself perceived in the tenant. Indeed, given Ms. Reid’s observations of the tenant, when coupled with the correct level of proof of mental illness required under the Fair Housing Act, there can be no credence given to our dissenting colleague’s statement that the landlord and its attorney “could reasonably believe” that the tenant “was not suffering from a handicap within the meaning of the Act.” Post at 991. It is no stretch, moreover, given Sutton’s and Byrd’s testimony on causation, to find sufficient evidence in the trial court record — surely enough for a jury to consider — showing a causal relationship between the tenant’s mental illness (especially when coupled with her alcohol abuse, another handicap under the Fair Housing Act) and her propensity to maintain a filthy, unsanitary apartment. The jury was not limited to finding that the filth had been caused by a tenant best characterized as a mere “eccentric” (our colleague’s word). Post at 982.

Accordingly, the dissent becomes irrelevant in claiming that Sutton and Byrd “acknowledged or demonstrated their lack of qualifications to opine on the issue.” Post at 972. They did indeed lack qualifications to opine on the specifics of “mood disorder NOS,” but as wé have explained that subset of mental illness was not “the issue.” This, of course, is not to say (as we are accused of saying) that “expert testimony ... .was not required in this case.” Post at 982. We are saying that, given the level of proof of “mental illness” required for a “reasonable accommodation” defense under the Fair Housing Act, the trial court erred in rejecting the testimony of Sutton and Byrd, whose credentials and experience in the mental health field — including experience with the tenant herself — were adequate under the statute to permit their opinions in evidence here. How far a court should go in admitting even less expert — indeed, purely lay — testimony as to mental illness in some other “reasonable accommodation” case will depend on the facts. But we are not close to purely lay opinion here.

This case truly is a sad one for all concerned. But the Fair Housing Act, as interpreted by the federal courts, mandates “reasonable accommodation” of a tenant’s mental illness. If the trial court had granted a brief stay to test the limited accommodation that tenant’s counsel had in mind, the prospects for accommodation could have been resolved with dispatch and the landlord protected with an immediate right of entry if — and whenever — the proffered cleaning resulted in default. Unfortunately, however, that did not happen; the tenant was evicted; and the case must be remanded for whatever relief is appropriate under the circumstances.

Reversed and remanded.

1 . The tenant, who had been missing for several weeks before the pretrial conference, did not appear for that conference, even though counsel had tried many times to firid her. Later, the tenant also failed to appear for trial, but the court permitted counsel to proceed on her behalf after he had represented to the court that her absence was due to mental illness.

2 . Before trial, over the tenant’s objection, the court had honored the landlord’s request to permit a videotaped deposition of its process server, who was moving to Texas and would be unavailable for trial on the tenant’s claim of improper service of the notice to cure or quit. Although the tenant has appealed this ruling, we need not address it in light of our disposition in the tenant’s favor on other grounds.

3 . 42 U.S.C. §§ 3602(h), -3604(f)(1) (2000).

4 . 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h)(1) and (3) (2000). Impairments attributable to "illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance” are excluded from protection. 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h) (2000).

5 . 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) (2000).

6 . D.C.Code §§ 2-1402.21(a), 1402.21(d)(3)(B) (2001).

7 . D.C.Code § 2-1403.04 (2001); 4 DCMR §§ 1001.1(a),-1001.7(1999).

8 . 45 D.C.Reg. 8057 (1998); 14 DCMR § 14-111 (1998).

9 . 14 DCMR §§ 111.3, -111.4,111.9, 111.6, - 111.11 to 13 (1998).

10 . 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(9) (2000); D.C.Code § 2-1402.21(d)(5) (2001).

11 . Radecki v. Joura, 114 F.3d 115, 116 (8th Cir.1997) (citing 42 U.S.C § 3604(f)(1)(A) (2000)).

12 . Id.

13 . Grubb v. Wm. Calomiris Inv. Corp., 588 A.2d 1144 (D.C.1991).

14 . Id. at 1146.

15 . 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(9) (2000); D.C.Code § 2-1402.21(d)(5) (2001).

16 . Roe v. Sugar River Mills Assocs., MB Mgmt. Corp., 820 F.Supp. 636, 639-640 (1993).

17 . Roe v. Housing Auth. of the City of Boulder, 909 F.Supp. 814, 822 (1995).

18 . See supra note 1.

19 . Jankowski Lee & Assocs. v. Cisneros, 91 F.3d 891, 895 (7th Cir.1996).

20 . Oxford House, Inc. v. Township of Cherry Hill, 799 F.Supp. 450, 462 n. 25 (D.N.J.1992); accord Bangerter v. Orem City Corp., 46 F.3d 1491, 1501-02 (10th Cir.1995); Keys Youth Servs. v. City of Olathe, 38 F.Supp.2d 914, 924 (D.Kan.1999); Alliance for The Mentally Ill v. City of Naperville, 923 F.Supp. 1057, 1078 (N.D.Ill.1996); N. Shore-Chicago Rehab., Inc. v. Vill. Of Skokie, 827 F.Supp. 497, 499 (N.D.Ill.1993).

21 . Supra note 5; see Alliance for Mentally Ill, 923 F.Supp. at 1078.

22 . Post at [985].

23 . Neithamer v. Brenneman Prop. Servs., Inc., 81 F.Supp.2d 1, 3-4 (D.D.C.1999) (Fair Housing Act); see American Univ. v. D.C. Comm’n on Human Rights, 598 A.2d 416, 422 (D.C. 1991) (applying "reasonable accommodation” requirement of D.C. Human Rights Act to alleged employment discrimination).

24 . United States v. Mobile Home Park Mgmt. Co., 107 F.3d 1374, 1380 (9th Cir.1997); Means v. City of Dayton, 111 F.Supp.2d 969, 977 (S.D.Ohio 2000); In re Kenna Homes Coop. Corp., 210 W.Va. 380, 557 S.E.2d 787, 794 (2001).

25 . Neithamer, 81 F.Supp.2d at 4; accord American Univ., 598 A.2d at 422.

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28 . Supra note 9.

29 . Alcohol abuse, like mental impairment, is a “handicap" that can serve as the basis for a discrimination claim under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h)(l)-(3) (2000); 100 H.R. Rep. 711, 2d. Sess. 22 (1988) (making clear Congress’s intent that the Fair Housing Act’s definition of "handicap” be interpreted and regulated consistently with the same term in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973); United States v. Southern Mgmt. Corp., 955 F.2d 914 (4th Cir.1992). Accordingly, someone with an alcohol problem, like a mentally impaired individual, must be afforded a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the Fair Housing Act. Samaritan Inns v. District of Columbia, 11 Am. Disabilities Dec. 1166 (D.D.C.1995), aff'd, in relevant part, 114 F.3d 1227, 325 U.S.App. D.C. 19 (1997); Walker v. Weinberger, 600 F.Supp. 757 (D.D.C.1985); Robinson v. Devine, 37 Fair Empl. Frac. Cas. (BNA) 728 (1985).

30 . In re Melton, 597 A.2d 892, 897 (D.C.1991) (en banc).

31 . E.g., Conn. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Lathrop, 111 U.S. 612, 4 S.Ct. 533, 28 L.Ed. 536 (1884); Dodrill v. Shalala, 12 F.3d 915, 919 (9th Cir.1993); deBruin v. deBruin, 195 F.2d 763, 764 (D.C.Cir.1952).

32 . 42 U.S.C. § 3602(h) (2000); cf. Advocacy Ctr. for Persons with Disabilities, Inc. v. Woodlands Estates Ass’n Inc., 192 F.Supp.2d 1344, 1347 (M.D.Fla.2002) (plaintiffs need not show "exact disabilities” to demonstrate they are "developmentally disabled” and thus entitled to "reasonable accommodation” as handicapped persons under Fair Housing Act).

33 . E.g., Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101, 12102 (2000); Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701, 705 (2000); District of Columbia Human Rights Act, D.C.Code § 2-1401 (2001).

34 . American Univ. v. Comm’n on Human Rights, 598 A.2d 416 (D.C.1991).

35 . Id. at 423.

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