Bates v. Neva
| Decision Date | 23 December 2014 |
| Docket Number | No. DA 14–0171.,DA 14–0171. |
| Citation | 377 Mont. 350,2014 MT 336,339 P.3d 1265 |
| Parties | Jim BATES, Petitioner and Appellant, v. Laura Lee NEVA, Respondent and Appellee. |
| Court | Montana Supreme Court |
377 Mont. 350
339 P.3d 1265
2014 MT 336
Jim BATES, Petitioner and Appellant
v.
Laura Lee NEVA, Respondent and Appellee.
No. DA 14–0171.
Supreme Court of Montana.
Submitted on Briefs Dec. 12, 2014.
Decided Dec. 23, 2014.
For Appellant: Jim Bates, self-represented, Fishtail, Montana.
For Appellee: Patricia D. Peterman ; Michael F. McGuinness, Patten, Peterman, Bekkedahl & Green, PLLC, Billings, Montana.
Opinion
Justice BETH BAKER delivered the Opinion of the Court.
¶ 1 Jim Bates appeals the Twenty–Second Judicial District Court's ruling that the Montana Human Rights Act (MHRA) applies to Laura
Lee Neva's claim of sexual harassment in her lease of commercial property from Bates. The issue we address on appeal is whether the MHRA applies to Neva's commercial lease. We conclude that it does and affirm.
PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND
¶ 2 In June 2009, Neva approached Bates about leasing a commercial property in Absarokee for an art gallery. The building was
not immediately tenantable because it had a leaky roof and other problems. The two came to a verbal agreement: Bates would pay for the materials and make the repairs, while Neva would help with the repairs and would not pay rent until a month after the building's condition permitted the gallery to open for business.
¶ 3 In July 2009, the two worked together on the repairs. Neva would later testify to numerous instances of inappropriate conduct by Bates during this month, including grabbing Neva's breast, commenting on Neva's underwear, and telephoning Neva to tell her that he was naked. Bates also sent a string of emails to Neva, later admitted into evidence, in which he proposed sexually explicit encounters. Neva eventually told Bates that he was “nothing but a landlord” to her. Bates then stopped making repairs, though the two dispute whether that was because Neva rebuffed his advances or because Neva installed a security system preventing Bates from gaining unfettered access to the building.
¶ 4 In 2010, Neva filed a complaint with the Montana Human Rights Bureau, alleging that Bates violated the MHRA by sexually harassing her. In 2011, after a contested hearing, a hearing officer found that Bates had “severe[ly]” and “persistent[ly]” harassed Neva, and that the harassment was “patently unwelcome.” Despite these findings, the hearing officer concluded that the harassment occurred in a context that neither the MHRA's public accommodation nor real estate provisions cover. With regard to the MHRA's real estate provisions, the hearing officer declared, “The MHRA does not address illegal discrimination in commercial, as opposed to housing, leases between private individuals.”
¶ 5 Neva appealed the hearing officer's determination to the Montana Human Rights Commission. Examining the text of the MHRA, the Commission concluded that it “prohibits unlawful discrimination in commercial property transactions, as well as all other real estate transactions.” Accordingly, the Commission ruled that Neva could proceed with her claim.
¶ 6 Bates sought judicial review, arguing that the Commission: (1)
violated his right to due process by analyzing Neva's action under the MHRA's real estate provisions, and (2) incorrectly interpreted those provisions. Ruling for Bates on the due process argument, the District Court vacated the Commission's decision and reinstated the hearing officer's.
¶ 7 Neva appealed the District Court's order to this Court and we reversed, concluding that Bates received due process. Bates v. Neva, 2013 MT 246, ¶¶ 19–20, 371 Mont. 466, 308 P.3d 114. We remanded, directing the District Court to resolve the issue that formed the alternate basis for Bates's challenge to the Commission's decision: whether the MHRA's real estate provisions apply to Neva's commercial lease. Bates, ¶ 20.
¶ 8 On remand, the District Court concluded that the MHRA's real estate provisions prohibit discrimination in commercial real estate transactions. The court entered an order on February 27, 2014, remanding the case to the Montana Department of Labor and Industry's Hearings Bureau for further proceedings, including a determination of damages. Bates appeals the District Court's decision and order, thus presenting to the Court this matter of first impression.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶ 9 The correct interpretation of a statute is a question of law that we review de novo. City of Missoula v. Iosefo, 2014 MT 209, ¶ 8, 376 Mont. 161, 330 P.3d 1180.
DISCUSSION
¶ 10 The MHRA prohibits an “owner, lessor, or manager” leasing a “housing accommodation or improved or unimproved property” from discriminating on the basis of sex “in a term, condition, or privilege” relating to property's “use” or “lease.” Section 49–2–305(1), (1)(b), MCA. “[S]exual harassment is sexual discrimination under the [MHRA].” Harrison v. Chance, 244 Mont. 215, 221, 797 P.2d 200, 204 (1990).
¶ 11 Based on the plain meaning of improved or unimproved property as used in § 49–2–305(1), MCA, the District Court concluded
that the MHRA prohibits discrimination in commercial real estate transactions. The court posited that a plain reading of the statute yields three categories of real estate transactions in which discrimination is prohibited: (1) housing accommodation transactions, (2) improved property transactions, and (3) unimproved property transactions. The court noted that only a “strained” reading of the statute would support reading “housing,” which clearly modifies “accommodation,” as also
modifying “improved property or unimproved property.” The court further pointed out that, if improved property meant housing property, it would mean essentially the same things as a housing accommodation. Thus, the court concluded that under “approved usage of language, ‘improved property’ includes commercial improved property, as there is no provision limiting it to residential improved property.”
¶ 12 Bates argues that the District Court got it wrong. Specifically, he interprets “housing accommodation or improved or unimproved property” to mean “housing accommodation or housing property.” This interpretation, he suggests, reflects the Legislature's intention to make the MHRA equivalent to the Federal Fair Housing Act with regard to real estate transactions. He argues that this interpretation also better comports with § 49–2–305's title, which refers to discrimination in housing, and with its other subsections that reference housing. Further, he suggests that his interpretation gives proper weight to how the Montana Human Rights Bureau, charged with administering the MHRA, applied § 49–2–305, MCA, only in housing transactions until it did otherwise in this case. Finally, he argues that his interpretation gives meaning to all of the statute's words because a housing property includes vacant housing whereas a housing accommodation does not.
¶ 13 We interpret statutes consistently with the Legislature's intent as crystallized in the statute's plain language. In re Marriage of Rudolf, 2007 MT 178, ¶ 41, 338 Mont. 226, 164 P.3d 907. Specifically, in interpreting a statute, we are “simply to ascertain and declare what is in the terms or in substance contained therein, not to insert what has been omitted or to omit what has been inserted.” Section 1–2–101, MCA. It is not our prerogative to read into a statute what is not there. Rudolf ¶ 41. As the District Court pointed out, to determine whether the MHRA applies to Neva's lease, one must ascertain the meaning of at least two terms: “housing accommodation” and “improved or unimproved property.” “Where there are several provisions or particulars, such a construction is, if possible, to be adopted as will give effect to all.” Section 1–2–101, MCA.
¶ 14 First enacted in 1974, the MHRA recognizes and declares that “[t]he right to be free from discrimination because of race, creed, religion, color, sex, physical or mental disability, age, or national origin” is a “civil right.” Section 49–1–102(1), MCA. The MHRA prohibits discrimination in a number of circumstances, including real estate transactions:
(1) It is an unlawful discriminatory practice for the owner, lessor, or manager having the right to sell, lease, or rent a housing
accommodation or improved or unimproved property or for any other person:
...
(b) to discriminate against a person because of sex, marital status, race, creed, religion, age, familial status, physical or mental disability, color, or national origin in a term, condition, or privilege relating to the use, sale, lease, or rental of the housing accommodation or...
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