Winning the Case

Winning the Case

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

Several years ago, the Wilson Co. came up with a novel legal strategy to a development problem. The Tampa-based company had carved out a niche as a player in the state's affordable housing industry. Only it ran into a problem over plans to build a 270-unit affordable housing project in Oldsmar.

Property owners joined with Oldsmar government officials to oppose the project. They cited density as their chief concern. Company officials accused the opponents of discrimination against the mostly lower-income residents the project would serve.

The company hired John Relman, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney, who filed a $13 million lawsuit against the city. He accused the city of violating the federal Fair Housing Act. City leaders withdrew their opposition and settled.

Relman talked briefly about his participation in the dispute as part of a Feb. 4 continuing legal education seminar on the Fair Housing Act at the Tampa campus of the Stetson University College of Law. Bay Area Legal Services Inc. sponsored the program with grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Besides his work on fair housing issues, Relman has served as lead attorney in numerous civil rights actions. He represented black customers in a discrimination action against Denny's Restaurant and won them a $17.7 million settlement.

Although he spoke mostly to government and legal aid attorneys, Relman offered ideas on how plaintiff and defense attorneys can benefit from understanding of how the Fair Housing Act works. There are potentially lucrative aspects of the housing law for plaintiff attorneys.

For instance, the law grants unlimited punitive damages, he says, but only as a deterrent and not for compensation. The law also allows for intangible compensatory damages that cover humiliation, embarrassment and emotional distress.

Total exposure to a typical Fair Housing Act complaint could subject a defendant to about $1.2 million in damages, costs and fees, Relman explains. In such a case, he would expect to collect about $400,000 in attorneys' fees with defense attorneys collecting about $300,000. That worst-case scenario assumes the defendant pays $25,000 out of pocket, $75,000 in intangible compensatory damages and $400,000 in punitive damages.

During his presentation, Relman explained the fundamentals of how attorneys can win a Fair Housing Act complaint. He offered tips on developing burden of proof, finding and using circumstantial evidence, defusing the defense, deposing witnesses and managing document discovery.

In most cases, Relman explains, the plaintiff's case centers on whether the developer, owner or operator of housing either intended disparate treatment or their actions resulted in disparate treatment.

Relman also advises attorneys not to limit their focus to just developers, owners or operators of housings. Defendants may include municipalities, government entities, homeowners and condominium associations, lenders, Realtors, insurance companies, advertisers, secondary financial markets and even neighbors.

Over the years, Tampa attorney Migdalia Figueroa has attended several of Relman's seminars on how to prepare and win a Fair Housing Act complaint. She uses many of his techniques in her role as a fair housing advocate at Bay Area Legal Services. The organization hired her last year through a HUD grant to represent lower-income residents against unfair housing practices.

This is a program similar to what Figueroa developed in Jacksonville in partnership with the legal aid program. While there, Figueroa also worked on non-adversarial strategies to help housing providers, lenders, advocates and others avoid costly litigation. It's the type of program she wants to build in the Tampa Bay area.

"When we developed this project in Jacksonville, we had good communications with developers and the real estate industries," she says. "Sometimes we co-sponsored activities. I think we are on that path, trying to come to the table to share information that is beneficial to everybody. That way our clients win and they can go about their business."