In El Dorado Estates v. City of Fillmore, published September 2, 2014, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed dismissal of a lawsuit brought by a mobile home park owner against a city under the Fair Housing Act. The plaintif operated the partk as a senior rental park, renting to residents who are 55 or older. The owner publicly discussed opening the park to families in response to a rent control ordinance. Instead, it decided to leave the rental mobilehome park business by subdividing the park into lots to sell to residents. The owner alleges that the city subjected the subdivision application to improper delays and conditions that, the park alleged, were intended to discourage the park's conversion from a senior park to a subdivided park open to families. The district court dismissed the suit, concluding that the park owner lacked standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution because it had failed to show an injury in fact under the Fair Housing Act.
The 9th Circuit ruled that El Dorado did have constitutional standing. Standing requires an invasion of a legally protected interest that is both concrete and particularized, and actual and imminent. The injury must also be fairly traceable to the defendant's allegedly unlawful conduct, and redressable if the requested relief is granted. Under the FHA, an organization may have standing to bring a suit on its own behalf, without being among the class discriminated against. Here, the alleged injury is the expense incurred through the unreasonable delays and extralegal conditions, allegedly intended to discourage the owner from opening the park to family housing. The injury is fairly traceable to the city's alleged conduct, and is redressable by damages.
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