Leslie v. 1125 Hammond, LP
| Docket Number | A23A0568 |
| Decision Date | 07 June 2023 |
| Parties | LESLIE v. 1125 HAMMOND, LP et al. |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
This case involves a dispute between a tenant and a landlord over whether the landlord made reasonable accommodations for the tenant's disability. After Kyron Leslie, a tenant who suffers from PTSD, was evicted for failure to pay rent, he filed the instant lawsuit alleging housing discrimination under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601, et seq. and Georgia's Fair Housing Act, OCGA § 8-3-202, and a violation of the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act ("FBPA"), OCGA § 10-1-393, based on the apartment's responses to his accommodation requests to move the due date for his rent and to waive the pet fees for his service animal. The trial court denied Leslie's motion for summary judgment and granted summary judgment to the apartment complex, and Leslie appeals from these rulings.
After reviewing the record and the relevant law, we conclude that (1) there are no fact issues remaining as to Leslie's claims for the failure to accommodate because there is no evidence that the apartment complex ever refused his request for a service animal or took any negative actions against him for his service animal; (2) Leslie abandoned his claim for failure to accommodate based on his request to move the due date for his rent; and that (3) Leslie's FBPA claim fails because this case involves private accommodations and is not based on wrongs to the consuming public generally. Therefore we affirm the trial court's judgment.
"On appeal, we review a grant or denial of summary judgment de novo and construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Doe v. Roe, 362 Ga.App. 23, 26 (3) (864 S.E.2d 206) (2021).
So viewed, the record shows that Leslie was a resident at the Citizens Perimeter apartment complex in Sandy Springs Georgia. In 2018, Leslie tendered two reasonable accommodation requests based on his PTSD to the then managing company, Bozzuto Management, asking to waive the pet fees and/or the pet deposit for his service animal and to move the due date for his rent from the 1st of the month to the 15th of the month. Bozzuto apparently agreed to both accommodations. In July 2019, defendant 1125 Hammond, LP, doing business as Sync Residential ("Sync Residential"), assumed management duties of the complex and changed the name of the complex to Sync Apartments. During the transition, Bozzuto did not inform Sync Residential of Leslie's accommodations.
On July 23, 2019, Leslie sent a letter requesting that the pet fee or pet deposits be waived for his service animal. Sync Residential, however, never replied to the letter, and after 4-6 months of waiting, Leslie gave the dog away.
After Leslie failed to pay rent for the months of July and August 2019, Sync Residential brought a dispossessory action to evict Leslie. As part of the action, the parties reached an agreement wherein Leslie paid the outstanding balance by September 25, 2019. During the action, Sync Residential learned of Leslie's accommodation request to pay rent by the 15th of each month and granted the accommodation. Leslie continued to make payments until his December 2019 payment was reversed by his bank for insufficient funds. Sync Residential filed a second dispossessory action in January 2020 which was resolved when Leslie agreed to pay the outstanding balance and move out of the complex by the end of May 2020. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and various orders imposing a moratorium on evictions, Leslie did not leave the complex until June 2021.
Leslie brought this action against Sync Residential, alleging that their failure to grant him reasonable accommodations for his service animal and to move the due date for the rent violated the Fair Housing Act, Georgia's Fair Housing Act, and the FBPA.[1] After the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court granted summary judgment to Sync Residential on all of Leslie's claims.[2] The trial court first concluded that Leslie's Fair Housing Act claim for the failure to move the rent date failed because the record conclusively showed that Sync Residential granted him this benefit. The trial court also concluded that his Fair Housing Act claim for the failure to accommodate his service dog failed because he could not show that Sync Residential ever refused his accommodation request. The trial court further concluded that the FBPA did not apply to Leslie's accommodation requests because a violation of the Housing Act did not automatically constitute a violation of the FBPA and because this case involved only a private transaction and did not involve damage to the consuming public as a whole. This appeal followed.
1. In two enumerations of error, Leslie argues that the trial court erred by granting summary judgment on his claims for housing discrimination based on Sync Residential's alleged refusal of his requested accommodations to waive the pet fees for his service animal and to pay his rent at a later date. The trial court correctly concluded that no fact issues remain on these claims.
Under the Georgia Fair Housing Act,[3] it is a discriminatory housing practice to "refus[e] to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling[.]" OCGA § 8-3-202 (a) (7) (B) (ii).
A successful failure-to-accommodate claim has four elements. To prevail, one must prove that (1) he is disabled within the meaning of the FHA, (2) he requested a reasonable accommodation, (3) the requested accommodation was necessary to afford him an opportunity to use and enjoy his dwelling, and (4) the defendants refused to make the accommodation.
(Citation omitted.) Bhogaita v. Altamonte Heights Condo. Assn., 765 F.3d 1277, 1285 (IV) (11th Cir. 2014).
(a) As for Leslie's claim based on his service animal, the trial court correctly granted summary judgment because no genuine issues of material fact remain.
As an initial matter, it appears that Leslie has failed to show that his requested accommodation to waive the pet fees for his dog was "necessary to afford him an opportunity to use and enjoy his dwelling." Bhogaita, supra, 765 F.3d at 1285 (IV). A "necessary" accommodation is one that "alleviates the effects of a disability," and a plaintiff must "show, at a minimum, that the accommodation affirmatively enhances his quality of life by ameliorating (or reducing) the effects of his disability." (Citation omitted.) Id. at 1288 (IV) (C). Here, Leslie's requested accommodation was not itself to have a service dog (as that was apparently already allowed), but he instead requested that Sync Residential waive any relevant pet fees for the dog. Leslie has not shown that waiving the pet fees would itself "alleviate the effect of his disability" any further than the benefit already provided by having the service dog. Compare Bhogaita, supra, 765 F.3d at 1289 (IV) (C) (). Leslie has not pointed to evidence that he lacks the reasonable financial capability to pay the pet fees, whether because of his disability or otherwise.[4] Leslie only points to evidence that he receives disability payments from the Social Security Administration, but he provides no further evidence to show that he receives no other source of income or that he otherwise cannot pay the pet fees. Leslie's reliance on Schaw v. Habitat for Humanity of Citrus County, Inc., 938 F.3d 1259 (11th Cir. 2019), is also inapposite because the plaintiff in that case "didn't ask [his landlord] to lower its minimum-income requirement or to accept any less than usual in terms of payment or interest" but instead simply sought to make the payments via another method. Id. at 1268 (II) (A) (2). Thus, it appears that Leslie has failed to show that his request to waive the pet fees was necessary to accommodate his PTSD.
In any event, the trial court correctly concluded that there is a lack of evidence that Sync Residential actually refused Leslie's request for an accommodation for his service dog. Here, according to Leslie's affidavit, he submitted a request for accommodation for his service dog, waited four to six months without obtaining a reply, and then gave his dog away before obtaining an official reply to his request from Sync Residential.[5] To bring a failure to accommodate claim, "a plaintiff must actually request an accommodation and be refused in order to bring a reasonable accommodation claim[,]" (Emphasis supplied.) Schwarz v. City of Treasure Island, 544 F.3d 1201, 1219 (II) (D) (1) (11th Cir. 2008), and it is undisputed that Sync Residential never resolved Leslie's claim for an accommodation, much less refused it.
That said, however, in construing the federal Fair Housing Act, the Eleventh Circuit has held that, while "[t]he FHA does not demand that housing providers immediately grant all requests for accommodation[,] . . . [t]he failure to make a timely determination after meaningful review amounts to constructive denial of a requested accommodation, as an indeterminate delay has the same effect as an outright denial."
(Citation and punctuation omitted.) Bhogaita, supra 765 F.3d at 1285-1286 (IV) (A). In Bhogaita, for instance, the main case on which Leslie relies, the Eleventh Circuit held that a housing association's six month delay in considering whether to grant a person's request for a service animal could be constituted as a...
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