Court Opinion

ID: 9493033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:56:06.860226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:36.552389
License: Public Domain

KING, Chief Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
Judge Duhé has written a careful and thorough opinion, and I concur in Part IIB of the opinion and its holding regarding ACORN’s standing. While I agree fully with the description in Part IIA of the opinion of the legal landscape on the award of punitive damages, I cannot agree with its conclusion, and I would affirm Lewis’ punitive damage award. As Judge Easter-brook said in declining to read a compensatory-punitive link into § 1981a or Title VII when no such link had been read into § 1983, “[ejxtra-statutory requirements for recovery should not be invented.” Timm v. Progressive Steel Treating, Inc., 137 F.3d 1008, 1010 (7th Cir.1998). I can see no justification for inventing such a requirement for the FHA.
As the majority acknowledges, punitive damages are a very important part of the FHA’s goal of eradicating discriminatory practices. “Punitive damages are awarded in the jury’s discretion ‘to punish [the defendant] for his outrageous conduct and to deter him and others like him from similar conduct in the future.’ ” Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 54, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983) (quoting Restatement (Seoond) of Torts § 908(1) (1977)). The jury in this case clearly believed that the defendant had engaged in behavior that warranted a punitive award. Indeed, the behavior exhibited by this defendant has been unlawful for thirty years and is reminiscent of the blatant violations challenged shortly after the Act became effective. And yet, he emerges from this case with no financial disincentive to continue his practices. Nor are other landlords in the community hereby discouraged from engaging in similar practices.
I see no language in the Act dictating the majority’s conclusion and I find it unfaithful to the FHA’s purposes. I also see it as providing a basis for similar conclusions in other contexts, thereby threatening the fulfillment of other civil rights acts’ goals. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.