McLemore v. Marin Housing Authority

Background

A putative class of current and former residents of the Golden Gate Village Public Housing Project sued Marin County, the Marin Housing Authority, and several County and Housing Authority employees. The residents alleged unsafe and unclean conditions, including outdated electrical subpanels, unheated bathrooms, rodents, and mold. They also alleged that the defendants allowed the property to deteriorate to justify demolition, violating federal due-process rights, and that the conditions and possible demolition would disproportionately affect African American residents and other groups.

The amended complaint asserted six causes of action: a California habitability claim under California Civil Code § 1941.1; two claims under the Housing Act of 1937; a disparate-impact claim under the Fair Housing Act; a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging deliberate indifference by the County and its employees; and a negligence claim against the County and its employees. The complaint also listed injunctive relief in its caption but did not state it as a separate cause of action.

Legal standard

The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. To survive, the complaint had to provide enough factual allegations to make liability plausible, assuming the pleaded facts were true and viewing them in the residents’ favor.

Claims against Marin County

The County argued that it could not be liable for the Housing Authority’s actions because the Housing Authority is a separate legal entity. The court agreed. It concluded that the County and its unnamed employees were not plausible defendants for the first four claims because the County did not legally own, rent, manage, or control Golden Gate Village, and the amended complaint alleged no facts showing otherwise.

The court dismissed the first through fourth claims against the County as a matter of law and stated that amendment would be futile because the separate-entity issue could not be fixed by adding facts. The dismissal was with prejudice.

The court also dismissed the fifth claim, a § 1983 deliberate-indifference claim against the County and its employees. The residents alleged that the County knew about the environmental conditions but did not investigate or enforce unidentified environmental laws. The court held that the complaint did not plausibly allege a state-created-danger theory because it did not allege affirmative conduct by the County that placed the residents in danger. The residents themselves alleged that the Housing Authority and its employees created the hazards, not the County. This claim was dismissed with leave to amend.

The court dismissed the sixth claim, negligence, for two stated reasons. First, the complaint did not allege compliance with the California Tort Claims Act, which generally requires a claimant to present a timely written claim to a public entity and have the claim rejected before filing suit. The residents’ complaint did not say whether their complaints were written or how the County responded, and the court could not rely on new factual assertions made only in the opposition brief. Second, the court concluded that the County and its employees had statutory immunity for the alleged failure to inspect property for health or safety hazards. The dismissal was with leave to amend so the residents could allege facts showing compliance with the claim-filing requirement and identify a plausible legal basis for liability.

Claims against the Marin Housing Authority and its employees

The Housing Authority argued that the California Tort Claims Act barred the residents’ claims. The court rejected that argument for the federal claims, explaining that the state exhaustion requirement does not apply to federal causes of action. Consequently, the second, third, and fourth claims against the Housing Authority would go forward.

The court reached a different result for the first claim, the California Civil Code § 1941.1 habitability claim. Because that claim sought monetary relief and was subject to the California Tort Claims Act, the residents needed to allege facts showing that they satisfied the claim-filing requirement. Their allegations that they had made complaints to Housing Authority employees were insufficient, and the court did not consider additional facts offered for the first time in an opposition brief. The claim was dismissed with leave to amend.

The court rejected the Housing Authority’s argument that the individual employees should be dismissed because the residents also alleged that the Housing Authority was vicariously liable. California law can allow both individual liability for public employees and vicarious liability for a public entity. The court therefore did not dismiss the employees on that basis. It also noted that statutory immunity did not apply to the federal claims against the employees, and the Housing Authority had not explained how its cited immunity provisions applied to the habitability claim.

Disposition

The court ordered that claims one through four against Marin County were dismissed with prejudice. Claims five and six against Marin County were dismissed with leave to amend. Claim one against the Marin Housing Authority was dismissed with leave to amend. Claims two through four against the Marin Housing Authority continued. The court’s order granted the County’s motion to dismiss and granted and denied the Housing Authority’s motion in part.