Hostile Environment Harassment

 Sometimes property managers allow repeated threats or harassment toward complaining tenants they wish to silence or remove from their nuisance properties.  Of course it's illegal for property managers to do this, but the well-connected, corporate property managers, often get away with doing so.   Hostile Environment Harassment has been, and continues to be, common business practice at Rockland Place dba Spring Gate Apartments along Martha Drive and Hannah Way in Rockland, Massachusetts.  

 In § 100.60, entitled “Unlawful refusal to sell or rent or to negotiate for the sale or rental,” the proposed rule would add the following paragraphs as illustrations of prohibited quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment under the Fair Housing Act: Conditioning the availability of a dwelling, including the price, qualification criteria, or standards or procedures for securing a dwelling, on a person's response to harassment because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability; subjecting a person to harassment because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability that causes the person to vacate a dwelling or abandon efforts to secure the dwelling. Conditioning the “availability” of a dwelling means the initial or continued availability of a dwelling, or both.

In § 100.65, entitled “Discrimination in terms, conditions, and privileges and in services and facilities,” the proposed rule would add the following paragraph as an illustration of prohibited quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment under the Fair Housing Act: Conditioning the terms, conditions, or privileges relating to the sale or rental of a dwelling or denying or limiting the services or facilities in connection with a dwelling on a person's response to harassment because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, national origin, or disability; subjecting a person to harassment because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin that has the effect of imposing different terms, conditions, or privileges relating to the sale or rental of a dwelling or denying or limiting service or facilities in connection with the sale or rental of a dwelling.

DIRECT LIABILITY:  Proposed paragraph (a) of § 100.7 identifies direct liability under the Act. New § 100.7(a)(1)(i) proposes that a person is liable for his or her own discriminatory housing practices. New §§ 100.7(a)(1)(ii) and (a)(1)(iii) describe direct liability grounded in negligence. New § 100.7(a)(1)(ii) proposes that a person is directly liable for failing to take prompt action to correct and end a discriminatory housing practice by that person's employee or agent where the person knew or should have known of the discriminatory conduct. New § 100.7(a)(1)(iii) proposes that a person is directly liable for failing to fulfill a duty to take prompt action to correct and end a discriminatory housing practice by a third-party (i.e., a non-agent) when the person knew or should have known of the discriminatory conduct. New § 100.7(a)(1)(iii) also proposes that a housing provider's duty to take prompt action to correct and end a discriminatory housing practice by a third-party can derive from an obligation to the aggrieved person created by contract or lease (including bylaws or other rules of a homeowners association, condominium or cooperative), or by federal, state or local law. 

With respect to a person's direct liability for the actions of an agent, § 100.7(a)(1)(ii) recognizes that a principal who knows or should have known that his or her agent has engaged in or is engaging in unlawful conduct and allows it to continue is complicit in or has ratified the discrimination.  With respect to direct liability for the conduct of a non-agent, § 100.7(a)(1)(iii) codifies the traditional principle of liability, and HUD's longstanding position, that a person is directly liable under the Act for harassment perpetrated by non-agents if the person knew or should have known of the harassment, had a duty to take prompt action to correct and end the harassment, and failed to do so or took action that he or she knew or should have known would be unsuccessful in ending the harassment.  This liability arises when, for example, a person, including a management company, homeowner's association, condominium association, or cooperative, knew or should have known that a resident was harassing another resident, and yet did not take prompt action to correct and end it, while having a duty to do so. As recognized by § 100.7(a)(1)(iii), this duty may be created, for example, by a lease or other contract under which a housing provider is legally obligated to exercise reasonable care to protect residents' safety and curtail unlawful conduct in areas under the housing provider's control, or by federal, state or local laws requiring the same.

    When harassment occurs in and around the home, the victim or survivor has little opportunity to escape it short of moving or staying away from the home—neither of which should be required.