Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia v. Main Line Times, 97-1169

• Decision Date: 31 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-1169,97-1169
• Parties: The FAIR HOUSING COUNCIL OF SUBURBAN PHILADELPHIA, Appellant, v. MAIN LINE TIMES; Acme Newspapers, Inc. *
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 439

141 F.3d 439

The FAIR HOUSING COUNCIL OF SUBURBAN PHILADELPHIA, Appellant, v. MAIN LINE TIMES; Acme Newspapers, Inc. ^*

No. 97-1169.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Sept. 9, 1997.

Decided March 31, 1998.

Clifford A. Boardman (argued), Philadelphia, PA, for Appellant.

Gregory M. Harvey (argued), Lisa A. Mathewson, Lewis & Bockius LLP, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellees.

Elaine R. Jones, Director-Counsel, Norman J. Chachkin, David T. Goldberg, Paul K. Sonn, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. New York City, Judith A. Browne, Peter F. Rundlet, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

William G. Scarborough, Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young, LLP, Philadelphia, PA, Karen L. Black, Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, for Amicus Curiae Fair Housing Action, Fair Housing Council of Montgomery County, Fair Housing Council of Southern New Jersey, Fair Housing Partnership of Greater Pittsburgh, Housing Consortium for Disabled Individuals, and Housing Council of York.

John P. Relman, Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Washington, DC, James R. Bird, Dona J. Martin, Timothy G. Lynch, Shea & Gardner, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae the National Fair Housing Alliance.

Before: MANSMANN and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges and BLOCH, District Judge. ^**

OPINION OF THE COURT

MANSMANN, Circuit Judge.

In this action brought pursuant to the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604, The Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia ("FHC") appeals an order of the district court granting a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict filed by Acme Newspapers, Inc. ("Acme"), its publication, The Main Line Times, and the paper's publisher. The district court granted this motion based on its conclusion that the FHC lacked standing under Article III of the United States Constitution to maintain this suit. Because we agree that the FHC failed to establish any "perceptible impairment" to its operation caused by the alleged discrimination and thus failed to satisfy the minimum standing requirements embodied in Article III, we will affirm the order of the district court.

I.

The FHC, a fair housing group which has operated in the Philadelphia area for more than forty years, describes itself as a non-profit organization whose "purpose is to educate and promote fair housing and to oppose segregation based on the protected classes found in the Fair Housing Act of 1968, as amended."

On February 21, 1996, the FHC filed eleven lawsuits in federal court, nine of which charged various newspaper publishers and related defendants with violations of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604. ¹ In this suit the FHC sought damages for injuries alleged to have been caused by real estate advertisements placed in the Main Line Times on a number of occasions during 1994 and 1995. In its complaint, the FHC alleged that:

On or about December, 1994 through at least November, 1995, defendants approved and published real estate advertisements that stated "no children," "three persons," as well as, upon information and belief, many other advertisements which indicated a preference or limitation on the basis of familial status.

The case was tried before a jury in December, 1996. At that time, five advertisements were at issue. These advertisements contained the following allegedly discriminatory phrases 1) "no children;" 2) "3 persons;" 3) "ideal for couple or professional single;" 4) "(for one person);" and 5) "(for one person)." At the close of all the evidence, Acme and the other defendants filed a motion for judgment as a matter of law, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 50. Acme contended that the FHC had failed to establish injury sufficient to satisfy the standing requirement imposed by Article III of the United States Constitution. The district court deferred ruling on this motion and submitted the case to the jury.

On December 4, 1996, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the FHC, awarding the FHC $25,000 in compensatory damages. On December 17, 1996, Acme renewed its Rule 50 motion, again arguing that the FHC lacked standing to pursue its claims under the Fair Housing Act. The district court granted this renewed motion on January 28, 1997, stating that it had "acted prematurely in submitting the case to the jury as[the FHC] did not have standing to bring any of the claims asserted in its Complaint." Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia v. Main Line Times, No. 96-1379, 1997 WL 30642 at * 6 (E.D.Pa. Jan. 27, 1997). This timely appeal followed.

II.

This appeal requires that we revisit, albeit in a different context, the identical issue raised in Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia v. Montgomery Newspapers, 141 F.3d 71 (3d Cir.1998): whether the FHC has shown "distinct and palpable" injury sufficient to satisfy Article III standing requirements under the Fair Housing Act. Resolution of this question turns on the application of constitutional standing requirements. We reviewed the parameters of these requirements at length in our opinion in Montgomery Newspapers, and will not repeat that discussion here.

We begin our examination of the issue before us by noting that Article III principles governing standing are by now well-settled. In Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992), the Supreme Court summarized the law of standing as follows:

Over the years, our cases have established that the irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact"--an invasion of a legally protected interest which is a) concrete and particularized, and b) "actual or imminent, not 'conjectural' or 'hypothetical.' " Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of--the injury has to be "fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court." Third, it must be "likely" as opposed to merely "speculative," that the injury will be "redressed by a favorable decision."

(Citations omitted.) These requirements--particularly the need for injury in fact--were applied in the fair housing context in Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 378-79, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 1124, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982). There, the Supreme Court wrote that:

In determining whether [a fair housing organization] has standing under the Fair Housing Act, we conduct the same inquiry as in the case of an individual: Has the plaintiff " 'alleged such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy' as to warrant his invocation of federal court jurisdiction"? ... If, as broadly alleged, petitioner's practices have perceptibly impaired [the organization]'s ability to provide counseling and referral services for low- and moderate-income homeseekers, there can be no question that the organization has suffered injury in fact. Such concrete and demonstrable injury to the organization's activities--with the consequent drain on the organization's resources--constitutes far more than simply a setback to the organization's abstract social interests.

455 U.S. at 378-79, 102 S.Ct. at 1124 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).

The caselaw establishes that in order to defeat the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the FHC was required to submit "evidence showing through specific facts ... that ... it [was] 'directly' affected [by the alleged discrimination]." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. at 562, 112 S.Ct. at 2137-38 (emphasis added). "Since [the elements of standing] are not mere pleading requirements but rather an indispensable part of the plaintiff's case, each element must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e. with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation." Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. at 2136. Despite the jury verdict in the FHC's favor, the district court concluded that the FHC failed to meet its burden of proof, producing nothing of substance at trial to support the damage allegations set forth in the complaint. ² There was no "evidence upon which the jury could properly find a verdict for [the FHC]." Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F.3d 1153, 1166 (3d Cir.1993).

Judgment as a matter of law is to be granted sparingly. We will affirm an order granting judgment as a matter of law "only if, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant and giving it the advantage of every fair and reasonable inference ... it is apparent that the verdict is not supported by legally sufficient evidence." Id. We have carefully reviewed the FHC's damage allegations and the evidence introduced to support them and are convinced that this is one of those rare cases where, following a jury verdict, judgment as a matter of law was warranted.

III.

The FHC alleges that it suffered impairment sufficient to establish Article III standing when it was forced to divert resources from counseling and other activities to: (1) an investigation designed to determine the existence and extent of on-going discrimination in advertising; (2) litigation; and (3) an educational campaign designed to counteract the discriminatory effect of the advertisements. We considered and rejected identical damage claims based on the need to divert funds to investigation and litigation in Montgomery Newspapers. As the "proof" offered on these issues is virtually identical to that offered and found lacking in Montgomery Newspapers, we need not detail that proof or repeat our analysis here.

Because, however, the evidence regarding the need for an educational campaign to counteract the alleged discrimination differs somewhat from that offered in Montgomery...