Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia v. Montgomery Newspapers

• Decision Date: 31 March 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-1051,97-1051
• Parties: The FAIR HOUSING COUNCIL OF SUBURBAN PHILADELPHIA, Appellant, v. MONTGOMERY NEWSPAPERS; Montgomery Publishing Co.; Arthur W. Howe, IV; Naomi Brownstein.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 71

141 F.3d 71

The FAIR HOUSING COUNCIL OF SUBURBAN PHILADELPHIA, Appellant, v. MONTGOMERY NEWSPAPERS; Montgomery Publishing Co.; Arthur

W. Howe, IV; Naomi Brownstein.

No. 97-1051.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued Sept. 9, 1997.

Decided March 31, 1998.

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

Reuben A. Guttman (Argued), Brian P. McCafferty, Provost & Umphrey, Washington, DC, for Appellees.

William G. Scarborough, Stradley, Ronon, Stevens & Young, LLP, 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 A. Feichtel, Pennsylvania Newspaper Publisher Association, Harrisburg, PA, for Amicus Curiae Pennsylvania Newspaper Publishers' Association.

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

OPINION OF THE COURT

MANSMANN, Circuit Judge.

The Fair Housing Council of Suburban Philadelphia ("FHC") appeals an order of the district court granting summary judgment in favor of Montgomery Newspapers ("Montgomery"), the papers' publisher, and their classified advertisements editor in an action filed pursuant to the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3604 and 3617, and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, 43 P.S. § 955. The district court's grant of summary judgment was based on its conclusion that the FHC lacked standing under Article III of the United States Constitution to maintain this suit. Because we are convinced by the unique set of facts surrounding the section 3604(c) claims that the FHC has failed to satisfy the "injury in fact" requirement embodied in Article III, we find that the grant of summary judgment as to those claims was appropriate. As to the section 3617 retaliation claims, however, we find that the FHC has raised issues of fact sufficient to withstand Montgomery's motion for summary judgment. We will, therefore, reverse the district court's entry of summary judgment as to the retaliation claim and remand for further consideration.

I.

The FHC, a fair housing group which has operated in the Philadelphia area for more than forty years, defines 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 April 6, 1994, the FHC filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission ("PHRC") and HUD alleging that from November 24, 1993 forward, Montgomery "accepted and published advertisements that were discriminatory based on gender and familial status" in violation of state and federal law. The complaint included copies of six advertisements which appeared in Montgomery newspapers between November, 1993 and March, 1994. Each of these advertisements contained one of the following allegedly objectionable phrases: "mature person"; "ideal for quiet and reserved single and-or couple"; "professional male ... only"; and "quiet mature setting." On January 5, 1996, the PHRC notified the FHC that "investigation of the complaint [had] resulted in a Finding of Probable Cause...."

According to the FHC, Montgomery "continued publishing discriminatory speech." Therefore on February 21, 1996, the FHC filed suit in district court. An amended complaint was filed on April 10, 1996. In the amended complaint, the FHC alleged that Montgomery's acceptance and publication of discriminatory housing advertisements frustrated the organization's mission and resulted in damage to the organization caused by the need to divert resources to fight the discrimination. The FHC also alleged that as a result of the discriminatory advertisements, "families with children were barred from housing" in violation of state and federal law.

The amended complaint added allegations that Montgomery had intimidated, coerced, interfered with and retaliated against the FHC as a result of the FHC's complaint against Montgomery. The FHC contended that in newspaper articles, testimony before the state legislature, and other false statements made by or on behalf of Montgomery, the FHC had been placed in a position of ridicule which impaired the organization's effectiveness.

On September 25, 1996, Montgomery filed a motion for summary judgment which was granted on January 6, 1997. The district court held that the FHC lacked standing to pursue any of the claims alleged.

In arriving at this conclusion the district court separated the FHC's damage claims into three categories: (1) frustration of the FHC mission; (2) diversion of resources to measures designed to correct the harm caused by the discriminatory advertising; and (3) diversion of resources to litigation.

Analyzing the first category of claims, the court found that frustration of an organization's mission can never, as a matter of law, suffice to satisfy the Article III requirement of injury in fact. With respect to the alleged diversion of resources to programs designed to counteract the discrimination, the district court found that the FHC "failed to set forth specific evidence demonstrating that its various programs have been 'perceptibly impaired as a result of the diversion of its resources ... to activities counteracting [the] allegedly discriminatory acts.' [P]laintiff has failed ... to initiate any such educational program or to expend any funds at all on the development of such a program." Fair Housing Council v. Montgomery Newspapers, 1997 WL 5185 * 7 (E.D.Pa. Jan. 7, 1997).

The court also rejected the FHC's argument that it had suffered injury for purposes of Article III when it was forced to divert resources from other programs to the pursuit of litigation. "[S]uch an injury cannot constitute, as a matter of law, an injury in fact." Id. at * 6. The court reasoned that finding this type of injury sufficient would mean that an organization would be able to "manufacture the injury necessary to maintain a suit from its expenditure of resources on that very suit." Id. at * 5 (quoting Spann v. Colonial Village, Inc., 899 F.2d 24, 27 (D.C.Cir.1990)).

This timely appeal followed.

II.

In order to place the district court's holding and our review of that holding in context, we turn first to the law governing standing in general. Constitutional standing requirements have been articulated often. The Supreme Court summarized the history and parameters of those requirements most recently in Raines v. Byrd, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 2312, 138 L.Ed.2d 849 (1997). Article III § 2 of the Constitution confers jurisdiction in the federal courts over "cases" and "controversies." "One element of the case or controversy requirement is that [the plaintiffs], based on their complaint, must establish that they have standing to sue. The standing inquiry focuses on whether the plaintiff is the proper party to bring this suit." Id. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 2317 (citation omitted).

The standing inquiry in most cases is two-tiered, involving "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, 2204-05, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). First, a plaintiff must satisfy the "case" or "controversy" requirement of Article III. This requirement has been described as "immutable", Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, ----, 117 S.Ct. 1154, 1163, 137 L.Ed.2d 281 (1997) and as the "irreducible constitutional minimum." Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992). The standing requirements embodied in the "case" or "controversy" provision of Article III mean that in every case, the plaintiff must be able to demonstrate:

An "injury in fact"--an invasion of a judicially cognizable interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; second, there 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 ... the 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."

Id. at 560-61, 112 S.Ct. at 2136. Each of these elements of Article III standing "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." Bennett v. Spear, at ---- - ----, 117 S.Ct. at 1163-64 (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561, 112 S.Ct. at 2136-37).

Even where this constitutional minimum has been met, courts have developed other standing principles which may be invoked to defeat a plaintiff's standing to pursue a claim.

In addition to the immutable requirements of Article III, "the federal judiciary has also adhered to a set of prudential principles that bear on the issue of standing." Like their constitutional counterparts, these "judicially self-imposed limits on the exercise of federal jurisdiction" are "founded in concern about the proper--and properly limited--role of the courts in a democratic society" but unlike their constitutional counterparts, they can be modified or abrogated by Congress.

Id. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 1161 (citations omitted). These second-tier prudential limits on standing deal with who is authorized to invoke the courts' decisional and remedial powers. The Supreme Court in Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 499-500, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2205-06, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975), summarized these prudential limits as follows:

Apart from [the] minimum constitutional mandate, this court has recognized other limits.... First, the Court has held that when the asserted...