Jeffries v. Georgia Res. Fin. Auth.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1980
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. C79-1349.
• Citation: 503 F. Supp. 610
• Parties: Katherine JEFFRIES, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. GEORGIA RESIDENTIAL FINANCE AUTHORITY et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia

503 F. Supp. 610

Katherine JEFFRIES, on behalf of herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. GEORGIA RESIDENTIAL FINANCE AUTHORITY et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. C79-1349.

United States District Court, N. D. Georgia, Atlanta Division.

December 22, 1980.

Martha A. Miller and Robert W. Cullen, Augusta, Ga., Elisabeth Youngerman, Savannah, Ga., John L. Cromartie, Jr., Atlanta, Ga., for plaintiff.

Arthur K. Bolton, Atty. Gen., Ethel D. Andersen, Asst. Atty. Gen., William L. Harper, U. S. Atty., Curtis E. Anderson, Asst. U. S. Atty., Atlanta, Ga., Jeffrey Starnes, Nation, Maddox & Starnes, Conyers, Ga., for defendants.

ORDER

ROBERT H. HALL, District Judge.

Plaintiffs, who are hereby certified as a class defined in the court's order of January 28, 1980, are or have been tenants inhabiting homes the rent for which is partially paid with federal rent subsidies. The Section 8 Existing Housing Assistance Payments Program, which supplies the rent subsidies, was established by Congress through enactment of Section 8 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974. 42 U.S.C. § 1437f. The program is implemented by regulations found at 24 C.F.R. Part 882.

Eligible participants receive a certificate of family participation, 24 C.F.R. § 882.12, which permits low income families to participate in the Section 8 program. Once certified, the family must locate a privately owned dwelling that complies with the housing quality standards approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). 24 C.F.R. §§ 882.103(a) and 882.109. When a certificate holder locates a dwelling he submits a request for lease approval. After approval, the Section 8 Existing Housing Assistance Program participant executes a lease with the owner of the private dwelling. The local Public Housing Agency (PHA), which in this case is the Georgia Residential Finance Authority (GRFA), simultaneously or subsequently executes a Housing Assistance Payment Contract with the owner. The assistance contract provides that assistance payments may be paid only with respect to a dwelling unit under lease for occupancy by a family determined to be a lower income family at the time the family initially occupies the dwelling. The Housing Assistance Payment Contract addresses contract rent, the family portion of the rent, assistance payments, maintenance, operations, inspections, and evictions among other provisions.

A certified family with a lease pays between 15 and 25 percent of its adjusted income for rent and utilities as determined in accordance with 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(c)(3) and 24 C.F.R. § 889.105. The balance of the rent is paid by GRFA directly to the owner on behalf of the certified family. The lease entered into by the participant must be approved by GRFA and must conform to regulations in order for payments to be made to the owner.

Each lease under the program is also affected by 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(d)(2), which requires each contract for an existing dwelling to be for not less than one month nor more than 180 months. All GRFA leases are for terms of 12, 24, or 36 months, but each lease contains a clause that allows termination upon 30 days written notice by either the landlord or the tenant at will.

Because of the clause allowing termination at will, the program as it now operates in Georgia does not require good cause prior to lease termination and thus provides no basis on which a tenant may contest termination of his lease. The issue in the present case is whether, under the statute, a lease may be terminated without good cause.

Evictions of Section 8 existing housing tenants are covered by 24 C.F.R. § 882.215, the only HUD regulation on the subject, which provides:

The Owner shall not evict any Family unless the Owner complies with the requirements of local law, if any, and of this section. The Owner shall give the Family a written notice of the proposed eviction, stating the grounds and advising the Family that it has 10 days (or such greater number, if any, that may be required by local law) within which to respond to the Owner. The Owner must obtain the PHA's authorization for an eviction; accordingly, a copy of the notice shall be furnished simultaneously to the PHA, and the notice shall also state that the Family may, within the same period, present its objections to the PHA in writing or in person. The PHA shall forthwith examine the grounds for eviction and shall authorize the eviction unless it finds the grounds to be insufficient under the Lease. The PHA shall notify the Owner and the Family of its determination within 20 days of the date of the notice to the Family, whether or not the Family has presented objections to the PHA. If the Owner has not received a response from the PHA within 20 days, he shall telephone the PHA and shall be informed by the PHA whether a notice of determination has been mailed. If the PHA informs the Owner that no notice has been mailed within the 20 day period, the PHA shall be deemed to have authorized the eviction.

Congress has provided, however, that assistance payments contracts between a PHA and an owner of existing housing must provide that "the agency shall have the sole right to give notice to vacate, with the owner having the right to make representation to the agency for termination of tenancy." 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(d)(1)(B). Thus, the statute and the regulation are in apparent conflict.

The statutory provision regarding eviction for existing housing tenants is in contrast to that provided in the Section 8 programs for new or substantially rehabilitated housing. In the latter two Section 8 programs the "contract between the Secretary and the owner ... shall provide that all ownership, management, and maintenance responsibilities, including the selection of tenants and the termination of tenancy, shall be assumed by the owner (or any entity, including a public housing agency, approved by the Secretary, with which the owner may contract for the performance of such responsibilities)." 42 U.S.C. § 1437f(e)(2).

All of the plaintiffs have been certified by GRFA as eligible to participate in the Section 8 Existing Housing Assistance Payments Program and were eligible when their leases were terminated or when they received termination notices from their landlord. Each plaintiff entered into a lease with the Midtown Apartments in Conyers, Georgia, for a term of 12 months, but each lease contained a provision allowing either the landlord or the tenant to terminate the lease upon the giving of 30 days notice. Pursuant to the 30-day termination clause, defendant Taptich, the owner of Midtown Apartments, gave notice to plaintiffs that he intended to terminate their leases and simultaneously informed GRFA. GRFA provided no administrative hearing or other relief with respect to the proposed terminations involved in the case. The present litigation ensued.

The essence of plaintiffs' claim is that their due process rights have been violated by the termination procedure involved in GRFA's administration of the Section 8 Existing Housing Program. To evaluate the merits of plaintiffs' contentions properly, the court must systematically address whether or not there has been sufficient state action in this case to implicate the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, whether or not plaintiffs have a property right in the continued occupancy of their apartments during the terms of their respective leases absent good cause for termination despite the lease provision permitting termination at will, and if so, what processes are required by the Constitution to protect that property right. Therefore, the court will examine each issue separately and sequentially.

I. STATE ACTION

The constitutional prohibition against deprivations of property without due process of law applies only to government action. U.S.Const. Amend. XIV. Identical deprivations by private parties are without constitutional implication. Therefore, as a threshold proposition, the court must conclude that there is some form of governmental action before analyzing the substantive property right involved, if any, and the procedural protections available. If there is insufficient governmental involvement in the Section 8 Existing Housing Program, the court's analysis need proceed no further.

Where the hand of government is clear, and its path toward contact with the individual unobstructed, the question of state action is easily resolved. Where, however, the hand of government is clear, but its path toward contact with the individual clouded by the action of a private individual, the question of state action is troublesome and fact-specific. "Only by sifting facts and weighing circumstances can the nonobvious involvement of the State in private conduct be attributed its true significance." Burton v. Willmington Parking Authority, 365 U.S. 715, 722, 81 S.Ct. 856, 860, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961).

Burton v. Willmington Parking Authority is the controlling case on the issue of state action. In Burton, the state of Delaware had leased, through a political subdivision of the state, space in a parking garage to the Eagle Coffee Shoppe, a restaurant that refused to serve blacks. The restaurant was owned and operated solely by private individuals and, other than being located in a public parking garage, had no abnormal contacts with state government. After analyzing the specific facts of the case, including the financing of the garage and benefits conferred by the restaurant and the garage on each other, the Court concluded that the state had "so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with Eagle that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, which, on that account, cannot be considered to have been so `purely private' as to fall without the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment." Id. at 725, 81 S.Ct. at 862. If, then, GRFA has so far insinuated itself with the private owner in carrying out...