Smith v. Hous. Auth. of S. Bend

• Decision Date: 30 March 2012
• Docket Number: Cause No. 3:09–CV–330.
• Citation: 867 F.Supp.2d 1004
• Parties: William SMITH and Lubirta Smith, PlaintiffS, v. HOUSING AUTHORITY OF SOUTH BEND, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

867 F.Supp.2d 1004

William SMITH and Lubirta Smith, PlaintiffS,

v.HOUSING AUTHORITY OF SOUTH BEND, Defendant.

Cause No. 3:09–CV–330.

United States District Court,

N.D. Indiana,

South Bend Division.

March 30, 2012.

Kent Hull, Indiana Legal Services Inc., South Bend, IN, for Plaintiffs.

Michael P. Palmer, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, South Bend, IN, for Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER

RUDY LOZANO, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint, filed by the Defendant, the Housing Authority of South Bend, on December 16, 2010. (DE # 43.) For the reasons set forth below, the motion is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN PART. As is described more fully in the body of the order, the motion is GRANTED to the extent that the Defendant seeks to dismiss the Plaintiffs' Bullying, Discriminatory Segregation, Race Based Fair Housing Act, Federal Constitutional, State Due Course of Law, and Title VI claims. These claims are DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. However, the motion is DENIED to the extent that the Defendant seeks to dismiss the Plaintiffs' Disability Based Fair Housing, Rehabilitation Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Habitability, and Third Party Beneficiary claims. These claims REMAIN PENDING before the Court.

BACKGROUND

On July 23, 2009, the Plaintiffs, William Smith and Lubirta Smith (collectively, the “Smiths”), filed their Verified Complaint With Jury Demand. (Comp.) The original Complaint named numerous defendants including: (1) the Housing Authority of South Bend (the “HASB”); (2) Marva J. Leonard–Dent, the Executive Director of the HASB; (3) the Board of Commissioners of the HASB; (4) the individual members of the Board of Commissioners of the HASB (Susie Harvey–Tate, Earl L. Hairston, Rafael Morton, Robert B. Toothaker, and Gladys Muhammad); (5) Stephen J. Luecke, the Mayor of the City of South Bend; and (6) Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). (Comp.¶¶ 4–9.) Motions to dismiss were filed by the various defendants, and on September 30, 2010, 744 F.Supp.2d 775 (N.D.Ind.2010), this Court issued an order granting those motions. (DE # 37.) While the claims against the Board of Commissioners, Marva J. Leonard–Dent, Susie Harvey–Tate, Earl L. Hairston, Rafael Morton, Robert B. Toothaker, and Gladys Muhammad were dismissed with prejudice, the remaining claims against the other named defendants were dismissed without prejudice. ( Id. at 778.) The Court granted the Smiths leave to file a motion to amend their Complaint and a proposed amended pleading to clarify their cause of action. ( Id. at 790.) On November 15, 2010, the Smiths timely filed an Amended Complaint, naming only the HASB as a defendant. (Amended Comp. ¶ 4.) In lieu of an answer, the HASB filed the instant motion to dismiss. (DE # 43.) The Smiths filed a response brief in opposition to the motion to dismiss on February 1, 2011. (DE # 50.) The HASB filed a reply on February 11, 2011. (DE # 51.) The motion is now ripe for adjudication.

The Amended Complaint describes the Smiths as married, African American adults, who reside as tenants at 628 Western Avenue, South Bend, IN 46601 (the “Property”). (Amended Comp. ¶ 3.) The Property is owned by the HASB. ( Id.) The Amended Complaint further describes William Smith as “an individual with a disability or handicap in that he has significant limitations to major life activities, has a record of such limitations, and was perceived by Defendant HASB to have such limitations.” ( Id.) William Smith's disability is described as follows:

Mr. Smith has mobility and strength limitations which impair his abilities to walk and to lift. He has undergone vascular surgery which has left him with severe limitations to his endurance, together with his abilities to walk and to lift. He has also suffered anxiety resulting from his physical disabilities; this anxiety and related stress and depression have caused limitations to his mental health which result in further limitations to his major life activities.

( Id.) The Smiths informed the HASB of William Smith's disabilities. ( Id.)

The Smiths allege that the apartment[s] in which they live[d] and the Property as a whole fails, and has failed, to meet the standards of habitability and peaceable enjoyment, and that the HASB staff members have failed to remedy the problems of which the Smiths complained. (Amended Comp. ¶¶ 6–11.) Some of the specific issues include[d] a broken and flooding toilet that took three weeks to repair, a roach infestation, an air conditioner that did not work due to an old filter, non-functioning elevators for “several weeks at a time,” a “filthy carpet,” mold problems, a water main break and stoppage in the building disposal system that resulted in “three weeks of sickening odors,” open electrical light sockets with exposed wires, and “dirty” common areas. ( Id.)

Because of those complaints as well as Smiths' advocacy on behalf of other residents in the Property with similar complaints, the Smiths claim that the HASB staff members retaliated against them by failing to take remedial action. ( Id. at ¶¶ 12 & 15.) The Smiths point out that some of these acts took place before they were married and prior to William Smith residing with Lubirta Smith in her apartment in the Property. ( Id. at ¶ 13.) ¹ The Smiths also allege that, prior to their marriage, the HASB “took actions to evict” William Smith from his previous apartment while he was “seriously ill” and commenced legal proceedings against him when the HASB knew he was “hospitalized for serious surgery.” ( Id. at ¶¶ 13–14.) The Smiths claim that these actions occurred in retaliation for William Smith's repeated complaints about the conditions and services at the Property. ( Id. at ¶ 13.) It is the contention of the Smiths that Lubirta Smith was retaliated against “because of her association with Mr. William Smith” and because of her advocacy on his behalf both before and after their marriage. ( Id. at ¶ 15.) They assert that this retaliation was taken in “the form of refusal to provide service and rude remarks to her.” ( Id.)

The Smiths also allege that the HASB staff members “acquiesced in the bullying of Mr. Smith by at least one other resident and did nothing to intervene and stop the bullying.” ( Id. at ¶ 16.)

Finally, the Smiths allege that the Property, the HASB complex in which the Property is located, and the neighborhood in general are all “populated overwhelmingly by residents who are African American and not Caucasian,” many of whom are individuals with disabilities, and that the “concentration of non-Caucasian residents” is “far out of proportion to the corresponding population figures for the City of South Bend or the County of St. Joseph, IN.” ( Id. at ¶¶ 17–19.)

The Amended Complaint, which premises subject-matter jurisdiction on 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and 28 U.S.C. § 1367, alleges eight claims seeking vindication of rights “guaranteed to [the Smiths], as residents of a federally funded public housing project, by the Fair Housing Act, as amended, 42 U.S.C. sec. 3601 et seq.; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. sec. 601 et seq.; Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. secs. 12131 et. Seq.; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. sec. 794; and the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. ²” (Amended Comp. ¶¶ 1–2.) For each claim, the Smiths seek compensatory and exemplary damages, and the Amended Complaint also requests equitable relief in various forms. ( Id. at ¶¶ 30–31.)

DISCUSSION

As an initial matter, the Court notes that the precise claims of the Smiths are difficult to decipher from the face of the Amended Complaint. The Smiths present a narrative of Facts in their Amended Complaint followed by a “Causes of Action” section containing eight numbered claims referencing various statutes and legal provisions. The Facts are applied generally to some of specific numbered claims but not to others. These claims are followed by an all-encompassing “Elements of Damages” clause alleging that the Smiths have:

suffered and are threatened with economic loss; loss of quiet enjoyment of their property; apprehension; fear; worry; humiliation; and physical and mental impact as a consequence of the actions of all Defendants. Each element of damages occurred in each Cause of Action, and on each element of damages for each Cause of Action, [the Smiths] seek compensation in the amount of $10,000 compensatory and $10,000 exemplary damages for wanton and outrageous conduct.

(Amended Comp. ¶ 30.) The Court is left with the task of attempting to determine which Facts are meant to be applied to which claims, and the Smiths do little to clarify these issues in their response brief.

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a) provides, in part: “A pleading that states a claim for relief must contain: ... a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R.Civ.P. 8(a). In determining the propriety of dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, the court must “take the complaint's well-pleaded factual allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences in [the plaintiff's] favor from those allegations.” Abcarian v. McDonald, 617 F.3d 931, 933 (7th Cir.2010) (citing London v. RBS Citizens, N.A., 600 F.3d 742, 745 (7th Cir.2010)). Dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is required if the complaint fails to describe a claim that is plausible on its face. Sharp Elecs. Corp. v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 578 F.3d 505, 510 (7th Cir.2009) (citing Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)).

A complaint is not required to contain detailed factual allegations, but it is not enough merely that there might be some conceivable set of facts that entitles the plaintiff to relief. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, ...