Huertas v. East River Housing Corp.

81 F.R.D. 641, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14477
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedFebruary 13, 1979
DocketNo. 77 Civ. 4494 (RLC)
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 81 F.R.D. 641 (Huertas v. East River Housing Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Huertas v. East River Housing Corp., 81 F.R.D. 641, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14477 (S.D.N.Y. 1979).

Opinion

OPINION

ROBERT L. CARTER, District Judge.

The plaintiffs in this case are two community organizations and a number of indi[644]*644viduals who allege that the defendants have engaged in a pattern of racial and ethnic discrimination in the sale of cooperative apartments. The defendant housing corporations and corporate officers (collectively referred to here as “East River Housing”) have moved to dismiss the claims of the organizational plaintiffs, It’s Time, Inc. (“It’s Time”) and the Lower East Side Joint Planning Council on Housing (“JPC”), on the ground that they lack standing. At the time that the court certified this lawsuit as a class action, decision on defendants’ motion regarding standing was reserved.1 For the reasons that follow the court now holds that the plaintiff organizations have standing, and defendants’ motion is denied.

Background

East River Housing operates a number of cooperative apartment buildings in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, an area roughly defined by plaintiffs as bounded by Fourteenth Street on the north, the East River on the east, the southern tip of Manhattan, and Broadway. The gravamen of the complaint is that East River Housing has discriminated against black and Hispanic persons in the allocation of apartment units.2 Defendants have allegedly perpetrated this discrimination by refusing to sell apartments to minority, applicants, by discouraging minority applicants from completing the application process, and by selling apartments primarily to the friends and relatives of current tenants who are predominantly white. The named plaintiffs represent two subclasses of claimants: (1) black and Hispanic individuals who actually filed applications and have not been sold an apartment, and (2) minority persons who were discouraged from applying by their knowledge of East River Housing’s allegedly discriminatory policies. The plaintiffs assert that the policies of East River Housing violate both the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1982.

Defendants have strenuously denied plaintiffs' allegations. They assert that they have never withheld an application form from any person nor refused to sell any apartment on the basis of the applicant’s race or ethnicity. East River Housing suggests that the plaintiffs’ attempts to secure housing have met with frustration because most of the plaintiffs are seeking scarce three-bedroom apartments which are allocated on a priority basis to current tenants who wish to move into these larger units.3

The first organizational plaintiff, It’s Time, is a not-for-profit New York corporation established for the purpose of aiding low income persons in locating housing. Toward this end, It’s Time participates in tenant selection procedures in public and federally-subsidized housing projects, advertises available housing, and assists applicants in completing the required forms. According to affidavits submitted by the plaintiffs, several members of It’s Time have been excluded from buying cooperative housing because of East River Housing’s policies, and others have been discouraged from applying.4 This has purportedly interfered with the ability of It’s Time to perform its stated role. It’s Time further alleges that defendants’ policies have deprived its members of the benefits of living in integrated housing.

JPC is an umbrella organization whose members are representatives of numerous [645]*645Lower East Side community groups. Like It’s Time, JPC’s primary goal is to obtain housing for low income persons in this section of New York City.5 JPC participates in tenant selection processes and lobbies governmental units to obtain funding for low income housing. It is alleged that some of JPC’s members, including the chairman who is a named plaintiff, have been denied the opportunity to buy apartments in the defendants’ buildings on account of race or ethnicity or have been deterred from applying because of East River Housing’s policies. JPC’s members have allegedly been prevented from living in integrated buildings, and the organization claims that it has been thwarted in the accomplishment of its goals by the defendants’ discriminatory policies.

Legal Framework

The question of whether a litigant has standing to raise a claim “involves both constitutional limitations on federal court jurisdiction and prudential limitations on its exercise.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2205, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). The constitutional constraint is dictated by the Article III requirement that courts take jurisdiction only over cases and controversies. To overcome this first hurdle, a plaintiff must have “ ‘alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy’ as to warrant his invocation of federal-court jurisdiction and to justify exercise of the court’s remedial powers on his behalf.” Warth v. Seldin, supra, at 498-99,95 S.Ct., at 2205, quoting Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962).

Courts have designated this requisite element the “injury in fact” requirement. But it is critical to understand that the injury need not constitute a violation of the plaintiff’s own legal rights. For example, a white who is prohibited by law from selling his home to a black suffers no legal wrong; only the rights of the potential purchaser have been violated. Nevertheless, the white plaintiff’s loss of a sale constitutes harm to him sufficient to meet at least the constitutional test for standing. See Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U.S. 229, 237, 90 S.Ct. 400, 24 L.Ed.2d 386 (1969); Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249, 259-60,73 S.Ct. 1031, 97 L.Ed. 1586 (1953).

Numerous types of harm have been held to be adequate precursors to a grant of standing. The mere loss of aesthetic pleasure, for instance, is enough to meet the injury in fact requirement. Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 734, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972). Of course, more mundane injuries such as economic loss are also sufficient. Indeed, the government can “create” injury in fact by establishing a legal right the deprivation of which in itself constitutes harm to the victim. Warth v. Seldin, supra, 422 U.S. at 500, 95 S.Ct. 2197; Linda R. S. v. Richard D., 410 U.S. 614, 617 n. 3, 93 S.Ct. 1146, 35 L.Ed.2d 536 (1973); Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U.S. 205, 212, 93 S.Ct. 364, 34 L.Ed.2d 415 (1972) (White, J., concurring).

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Bluebook (online)
81 F.R.D. 641, 1979 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14477, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/huertas-v-east-river-housing-corp-nysd-1979.