Source: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/455/363.html
Timestamp: 2017-05-26 00:00:27
Document Index: 324903312

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 7', '§ 12', '§ 7', '§ 13', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 7', '§ 14', '§ 14', '§ 13', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 13', '§ 7', '§ 14', '§ 16', '§ 18', '§ 16', '§ 13', '§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 12']

HAVENS REALTY CORP. v. COLEMAN | FindLaw
HAVENS REALTY CORP. v. COLEMAN, (1982)
No. 80-988
Argued: December 1, 1981 Decided: February 24, 1982
At the time suit was brought, defendant Havens owned and operated two apartment complexes, Camelot Townhouses and Colonial Court Apartments, in Henrico County, Va., a suburb of Richmond. The complaint identified Paul Coles as a black "renter plaintiff" who, attempting to rent an apartment from Havens, inquired on July 13, 1978, about the availability of an apartment at the Camelot complex, and was falsely told that no apartments were available. App. 13, § 7; id., at 15, § 12.
The other two individual plaintiffs, Coleman and Willis, were described in the complaint as "tester plaintiffs" who were employed by HOME to determine whether Havens practiced racial steering. Id., at 13, § 7. Coleman, who is black, and Willis, who is white, each assertedly made inquiries of Havens on March 14, March 21, and March 23, 1978, regarding the availability of apartments. On each occasion, Coleman was told that no apartments were available; Willis was told that there were vacancies. On July 6, 1978, Coleman made a further inquiry and was told that there were no vacancies in the Camelot Townhouses; a white tester for HOME, who was not a party to the complaint, was given contrary information that same day. Id., at 16, § 13.
The complaint identified HOME as "a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Virginia" whose purpose was "to make equal opportunity in housing a reality in the Richmond Metropolitan Area." Id., at 13, § 8. According to the complaint, HOME's membership was "multiracial and include[d] approximately 600 individuals." Ibid. Its activities included the operation of a housing counseling service, and the investigation and referral of complaints concerning housing discrimination. Id., at 14, §§ 8a, 8b. [455 U.S. 363, 369]
The three individual plaintiffs, who at the time the complaint was filed were all residents of the city of Richmond or the adjacent Henrico County, id., at 13, § 7, averred that they had been injured by the discriminatory acts of petitioners. Coles, the black renter, claimed that he had been "denied the right to rent real property in Henrico County." Id., at 17, § 14. Further, he and the two tester plaintiffs alleged that Havens' practices deprived them of the "important social, professional, business and economic, political and aesthetic benefits of interracial associations that arise from living in integrated communities free from discriminatory housing practices." Id., at 17, §§ 14, 15. And Coleman, the black tester, alleged that the misinformation given her by Havens concerning the availability of apartments in the Colonial Court and Camelot Townhouse complexes had caused her "specific injury." Id., at 16, § 13.
HOME also alleged injury. It asserted that the steering practices of Havens had frustrated the organization's counseling and referral services, with a consequent drain on resources. Id., at 17, § 16. Additionally, HOME asserted that its members had been deprived of the benefits of interracial association arising from living in an integrated community free of housing discrimination. Id., at 17-18, § 16.
In the instant case, respondent Coleman - the black tester - alleged injury to her statutorily created right to truthful housing information. As part of the complaint, she averred that petitioners told her on four different occasions that apartments were not available in the Henrico County complexes while informing white testers that apartments were available. If the facts are as alleged, then respondent has suffered "specific injury" from the challenged acts of petitioners, see App. 16, § 13, and the Art. III requirement of injury in fact is satisfied.
The two individual respondents, who according to the complaint were "residents of the City of Richmond or Henrico County," alleged that the racial steering practices of petitioners have deprived them of "the right to the important social, professional, business and economic, political and aesthetic benefits of interracial associations that arise from living in integrated communities free from discriminatory housing practices." App. 13, § 7; id., at 17, §§ 14, 15. The type of injury alleged thus clearly resembles that which we found palpable in Bellwood. In that case, plaintiffs alleged that the steering practices of the defendants, by transforming their neighborhood in Bellwood from an integrated into an almost entirely black environment, had deprived them of "the social and professional benefits of living in an integrated society" and had caused them "economic injury." 441 U.S., at 111
HOME brought suit against petitioners both as a representative of its members and on its own behalf. In its representative capacity, HOME sought only injunctive relief. See App. 17, § 16; id., at 18-20, § 18. Under the terms of the letter settlement reached between petitioners and respondents, however, HOME has agreed to abandon its request for injunctive relief in the event the District Court ultimately approves the settlement. Supra, at 370-371, and n. 10. Additionally, in its brief in this Court, HOME suggests that we need not decide whether the organization has standing in its representative capacity. Brief for Respondents 8, n. 8; id., at 39, n. 35. In view of HOME's apparent willingness to abandon this claim, we think it inappropriate that the Court use its resources to resolve an issue for which "such small embers of controversy . . . remain." Taggart v. Weinacker's, Inc., 397 U.S. 223, 225
"Plaintiff HOME has been frustrated by defendants' racial steering practices in its efforts to assist equal access to housing through counseling and other referral services. Plaintiff HOME has had to devote significant resources to identify and counteract the defendant's [sic] racially discriminatory steering practices." App. 17, § 16.
Applying this principle to the "neighborhood" claims of Coleman and Willis, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the 180-day statute of limitations is no bar. Willis and Coleman have alleged that petitioners' continuing pattern, practice, and policy of unlawful racial steering has deprived them of the benefits of interracial association arising from living in an integrated neighborhood. Plainly the claims, as currently alleged, are based not solely on isolated incidents involving the two respondents, but a continuing violation manifested in a number of incidents - including at least one (involving Coles) that is asserted to have occurred within the 180-day period. HOME, too, claims injury to its counseling and referral services not only from the incidents involving Coleman and Willis, but also from a continuing policy and practice of unlawful racial steering that extends through the last alleged incident. We do not agree with the Court of Appeals, however, that insofar as respondent Coleman has standing to assert a claim as a "tester," she may take advantage of the "continuing violation" theory. Her tester claim is, in essence, that on four isolated occasions she received false information from petitioners in violation of 804(d). It is not alleged, nor could it be, that the incident of steering involving Coles on July 13, 1978, deprived Coleman of her 804(d) right to truthful housing information. See App. 16, § 13. [455 U.S. 363, 382]
] As defined in the complaint, "racial steering" is a "practice by which real estate brokers and agents preserve and encourage patterns of racial segregation in available housing by steering members of racial and ethnic groups to buildings occupied primarily by members of such racial and ethnic groups and away from buildings and neighborhoods inhabited primarily by members of other races or groups." App. 11-12, § 1.
] The individual plaintiffs averred that they were "members of a class composed of all persons who have rented or sought to rent residential property in Henrico County, Virginia, and who have been, or continue to be, adversely affected by the acts, policies and practices of" Havens. App. 12, § 2.
] According to the complaint, "Camelot Townhouses is an apartment complex predominantly occupied by whites. Coles was informed that no apartments were available in the Camelot complex. He was told that an apartment was available in the adjoining Colonial Court complex. The Colonial complex is integrated." Id., at 15-16, § 12.
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