Opinion ID: 1472683
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the tenant's violations

Text: The circumstances giving rise to this case are poignant; a woman with an alcohol addiction and related problems was living in deplorable conditions; the District of Columbia government was aware of her circumstances for more than a year and did nothing at all about them. But Ms. Douglas' plight is not the whole story; an important subject to which the majority has paid quite limited attention is rather a basic one: What did Ms. Douglas do to cause the landlord to seek to evict her? The answer is central to this case, for it defines the conditions that a reasonable accommodation must address. The melancholy truth, as we have seen, is that Ms. Douglas not only turned her apartment into an unsanitary and uninhabitable unit, but by her neglect, she also generated a disagreeable odor that polluted the surrounding area. There was also rodent infestation. By the time the case went to trial in June 2002, this situation had continued unabated at least since July 2001, and perhaps from the beginning of Ms. Douglas' tenancy in January 2001. Although the court does not mention it, it is indisputable and, as far as I know, undisputed that Ms. Douglas was in protracted and severe violation of several of the District's Housing Regulations requiring tenants to maintain their units in sanitary condition. Douglas I, 849 A.2d at 976-77 n. 12. [4] The purpose of these regulations is to protect the public health. See 14 DCMR § 800.09 (Premises maintained in violation of this chapter create a danger to the health, welfare or safety of the occupants and public, and constitute a public nuisance.). Perhaps de minimis violations of the Housing Regulations do not constitute a danger to health and safety, but Ms. Douglas' violations were hardly de minimis. It would be unfair to say that the majority has ignored this subject altogether. The court's lengthy opinion contains almost three lines about it on page 3. Not content with that, the majority twice refers to Ms. Douglas' unit as a filthy apartment, and there may even be one or two other oblique references. Obviously, though, the majority does not regard the trashing and fouling of the premises or the severe and protracted violation of the Housing Regulations as having much bearing on the proper analysis of this case. In particular, the court apparently thinks it unnecessary even to mention the possibility that conditions of this level of severity, and of such extended duration, just might require immediate attention, and that the need for prompt amelioration should be a significant part of the court's calculus in determining whether the accommodation proposed by counsel on behalf of the absent tenant was reasonable. My view, on the other hand, is that where a tenant has created conditions as extreme as those in and around Ms. Douglas' unit, and where these conditions have continued unabated throughout her tenancy (and after the APS representative began to visit her) to the detriment of the health and safety of Ms. Douglas' neighbors, this reality is central to the determination whether there is any appreciable prospect that a proposed accommodation is adequate or will work. The majority's marginalization of Ms. Douglas' role in creating the problem is also important for another reason. So far as I can tell, the majority opinion does not contain a single word of criticism of Ms. Douglas, or any suggestion that anybody but the landlord was to blame for anything. The representatives of the District of Columbia government, who observed the conditions in and near Ms. Douglas' unit for a year without initiating any remedial measures, likewise emerge blameless from the court's accounting. [5] From the majority's perspective, the landlord (Kriegsfeld) appears to be the sole villain of the piece, [6] and counsel for Ms. Douglas, demonstrating the quality that makes chutzpah such an expressive noun, actually requested in Ms. Douglas' counterclaim that the landlord be held liable to her for damages! Yet it was Ms. Douglas who caused the unsanitary conditions and the sickening smell on the landlord's property, not vice versa, and her unfortunate alcohol addiction and mood disorder did not lessen the threat to health and safety. Assuming, as I do for purposes of this opinion, that Ms. Douglas was suffering from a handicap within the meaning of the Fair Housing Act, the law surely has not reached the point where alcoholics and people suffering from mood disorders or other comparable afflictions are not only protected by the Act, but also relieved of any responsibility whatever for their actions. If perverse incentives are to be avoided, there must be some limit to the lenient treatment [that may be] secured for [Ms. Douglas] by her own insobriety. In re Soininen, 853 A.2d 712, 729 (D.C.2004). Ms. Douglas, whose problems could well lead to homelessness, is certainly a person deserving our sympathy, but if she was a victim here at alland this is a big ifshe was not only a victim, nor was she the only victim; Kriegsfeld and Ms. Douglas' fellow-tenants were victims too. In failing to recognize that this is so, the majority paints a picture that, from my perspective, is disconcertingly askew.