Fair Hous. Ctr. of Metro. Detroit v. Am. Senior Living LLC

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FAIR HOUSING CENTER OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT, Plaintiff, v. AMERICAN HOUSE SENIOR LIVING, LLC, Defendant.

No. 21-11061

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

November 28, 2023

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANT'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (ECF NO. 83)

George Caram Steeh, United States District Judge

Defendant American House Senior Living, LLC, seeks summary judgment on Plaintiff's claims of disability discrimination under various federal and state statutes. For the reasons explained below, Defendant's motion is granted.

BACKGROUND FACTS

Plaintiff Fair Housing Center of Metropolitan Detroit (“Fair Housing Center”) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring equal access to housing. Plaintiff investigated several nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the metropolitan Detroit area to determine whether the facilities offer American Sign Language (“ASL”) interpreters for prospective residents who are deaf. One of those facilities is American House Senior Living, LLC (“American House”) located in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan. Plaintiff alleges that American House violated the Fair Housing Act, Affordable Care Act, Rehabilitation Act, and Michigan Persons with Disabilities Civil Rights Act by refusing to provide ASL interpreters for prospective deaf residents.

To support its mission, the Fair Housing Center conducts training and outreach and investigates housing discrimination complaints. The Center is primarily funded through grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and local municipalities. These grants require that the Center investigate complaints, provide outreach and education, and conduct testing to determine compliance with fair housing laws.

In this case, the Fair Housing Center decided to test whether various local senior living facilities would provide an ASL interpreter to prospective deaf residents.^[1]As part of that program, the Center sent testers to American House, which provides independent apartments, assisted living, and memory care to seniors. American House offers various activities and services, depending upon the resident's required level of care, including meals, administering medication, physical therapy, and enrichment activities. Independent living is considered a traditional landlord-tenant relationship, whereas American House's assisted living and memory care units are state-licensed facilities. In those facilities, American House conducts a health assessment to determine what accommodations may be needed and creates a plan with input from the resident's doctor. ECF No. 83-3 at PageID 1987-88.

Tester 1 visited American House on May 23, 2019. Tester 1 was instructed to pose as a relative looking for a one-bedroom apartment for her brother and to “mention that your brother is deaf (severe hearing loss) and you want to know if the complex (establishment) has an American Sign Language interpreter available to assist him.” ECF No. 83-19. During the visit, Tester 1 spoke with Lois Ryzyk, telling her that the apartment was for his brother, who “was probably not best living at home. Told her that he was on blood pressure meds but was still in fairly good shape.” ECF No. 83-12. Tester 1 also told Ryzyk that his brother was deaf and asked if “their staff was trained in American Sign Language interpretation.” Id. Ryzyk “said she did not think so, but would check & text me the answer. She asked if he could read lips and if he used a hearing aid (she said lots do and they talk loud to them).” Id. It is not clear from the record how Tester 1 answered these inquiries regarding his brother's abilities. Ryzyk took Tester 1 on a tour and explained that while they had studios available, they did not have any one-bedroom apartments. Tester 1 told Ryzyk that he would need to discuss the application with his brother; and Ryzyk promised to get back to him with an answer about the ASL interpreter. Ryzyk did not do so, however.

Tester 2 contacted American House by telephone, and was instructed to state that her grandmother was deaf and to ask “if there is an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter available.” ECF No. 83-23. Tester 2 spoke with “Pat” and inquired about independent and assisted living. Tester 2 told Pat that her grandmother is deaf and asked, “is there an ASL interpreter available?” Id. Pat said, “I don't know, but my initial thought is no.” Id. She put Tester 2 on hold, saying “let me check with my Executive Director.” Id. Pat returned to say, “no. But we have a lot of hard of hearing clients and interactive things are done to communicate.” Id. When Tester 2 asked if “any accommodations could be made,” Pat transferred her to the Executive Director, Anne Sadler.

When Sadler picked up the phone, she explained that it was hard to hear but that she did overhear some of Tester 2's conversation with Pat. Tester 2 asked if there are “any accommodations available for my deaf Grandmother” and Sadler said that “as a traditional landlord we don't provide care that way. We don't provide that service.” Id. Tester 2 asked if “accommodations are made for people in assisted living?” and Sadler replied that “it's probably the same for assisted living.” Sadler said that “even if we did have a staff who knows ASL ‘we can't know long they'll work here' and that they ‘can't guarantee someone knowing ASL would be available all the time and I don't know where you'll find that.'” Id. Tester 2 “thanked Anne for her time and ended the call.” Id.

Tester 3 was instructed to inquire about a one or two-bedroom apartment for her grandfather. Tester 3 was to inform the agent that her grandfather “was born deaf and cannot lipread, read or write English,” and ask whether the facility would provide an ASL interpreter “during medical discussions or other special occasions at the facility, not on a daily basis.” ECF No. 83-24. Tester 3 phoned American House to inquire about an apartment in assisted living, stating that her grandfather was deaf and “in need of an ASL interpreter.” ECF No. 83-14. She spoke with Danielle Cichocki. “I asked her if they have someone on staff? She said she wasn't sure off the top of her head but she knows that one of their residents is blind and they've made special accommodations for him. Their goal is to ‘meet people where they are' and provided specialized services to meet their needs.” Id. Cichocki offered to email a brochure to Tester 3, who thanked her and ended the call.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

I. Summary Judgment Standard

Summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In reviewing a motion for summary judgment, the court must determine “‘whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.'” Amway Dist. Benefits Ass'n v. Northfield Ins. Co., 323 F.3d 386, 390 (6th Cir. 2003) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52 (1986)). The facts and any reasonable inferences drawn from the facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986). In response to a properly supported motion for summary judgment, the opposing party must come forward with specific evidence showing there is a genuine issue of fact for trial. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.

II. Standing

Defendant argues that Plaintiff lacks standing to bring this action. Standing is a jurisdictional requirement: “an essential and unchanging part of the case-or-controversy requirement of Article III.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). The party invoking federal jurisdiction has the burden of demonstrating the three elements of standing: (1) an injury in fact, (2) fairly traceable to the action of the defendant, that (3) is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560-61. “To establish injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest' that is ‘concrete and particularized' and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.'” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560). Each element of standing must be supported with the “manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of litigation.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561.

An organization may assert standing as the representative of its members or on its own behalf, as the Fair Housing Center does here. MX Grp., Inc. v. City of Covington, 293 F.3d 326, 332-33 (6th Cir. 2002). An organization may establish standing on its own behalf if “it has suffered a palpable injury as a result of the defendants' actions.” Id. In the context of Fair Housing Act claims, “the circuits generally agree that an organization meets Article III standing requirements where it can show that the defendant's alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act caused it to divert resources from other projects or devote additional resources to a particular project in order to combat the alleged discrimination.” Fair Housing Council, Inc. v. Vill. of Olde St. Andrews, Inc., 210 Fed.Appx. 469, 474 (6th Cir. 2006). See also Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379 (1982) (plaintiff organization had standing under FHA when it alleged that racial steering practices impaired its ability to provide counseling and referral services and that it had “to devote significant resources to identify and counteract” those practices). However, the plaintiff must “show some injury that is independent of the costs of litigation.” Id.; see also Hooker v....