Opinion ID: 2405408
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Individual Tester Standing

Text: Molovinsky relies on Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington, Inc. v. BMC Marketing Corp., 307 U.S.App. D.C. 401, 28 F.3d 1268 (1994), for the proposition that individual testers do not have standing to sue under the DCHRA. BMC, however, has little persuasive value on the tester standing issue. The BMC court did not address the anti-discrimination provision that most closely resembles the DCHRA in terms of prohibited practices and available relief: Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as amended by the 1991 Civil Rights Act. [2] See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-1 to 2000e-17 (1994); Arthur Young & Co. v. Sutherland, 631 A.2d 354, 361 & n. 17 (D.C.1993). Thus we turn to the language of the DCHRA itself in deciding the tester standing issue. The DCHRA allows [a]ny person claiming to be aggrieved by a discriminatory practice to bring an action in court against the offending party. D.C.Code § 1-2556(a). The Supreme Court has construed the nearly identical language of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (any person who claims to have been injured) to confer standing to the full extent that Article III of the Constitution permits. Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 409 U.S. 205, 209, 93 S.Ct. 364, 366, 34 L.Ed.2d 415 (1972); see Gray v. Greyhound Lines East, 178 U.S.App. D.C. 91, 98, 545 F.2d 169, 176 (1976) (construing Title VII language, identical to the DCHRA, to confer standing to the limits of Article III). Although this court is not bound by Article III, the use of the quoted phrase indicates to us that standing under the DCHRA is co-extensive with standing under Article III. Violation of a plaintiff's statutory rights may itself constitute an actual or threatened injury sufficient to confer Article III standing. Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 373, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 1121, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982). In Havens the Supreme Court held that a tester who alleged a violation of her statutory right to truthful housing information satisfied the Article III requirement of injury in fact. Id. at 374, 102 S.Ct. at 1121. The plaintiff testers in this case alleged a violation of their statutory right to be free from sexual harassment. [3] As in Havens, the injury to their rights was direct and personal. Furthermore, the statutory violation and accompanying injury exist without respect to the testers' intentions in initiating the encounters. That the tester may have approached [appellant] fully expecting to [experience sex discrimination], and without any intention of [accepting an employment referral], does not negate the simple fact of injury within the meaning of [the DCHRA]. Id.; see also Evers v. Dwyer, 358 U.S. 202, 204, 79 S.Ct. 178, 180, 3 L.Ed.2d 222 (1958) (fact that plaintiff boarded racially segregated bus for the sole purpose of instituting litigation to challenge segregation was not significant). Thus we hold that the testers in this case had standing to sue for the alleged violation of their rights under the DCHRA. [4]