Pinckney v. Carroll

Background

Parisgiselle Pinckney sued the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Louise Carroll as HPD Commissioner, and the City of New York. She asserted claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Fair Housing Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the New York City Human Rights Law. She sought declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and monetary damages.

The case arose from the termination of the Section 8 housing subsidy received by Pinckney’s mother, Laurette Pinckney. After Laurette Pinckney suffered a stroke and became wheelchair-bound, she allegedly could not timely complete annual documentation and recertification requirements. HPD sent her a notice terminating the subsidy and set a deadline to request a hearing. She was hospitalized through that deadline.

After leaving the hospital, Laurette Pinckney allegedly went to HPD with a home health aide, explained her stroke and hospitalization, asked to submit the required documents late, and requested a hearing. According to the complaint, HPD accepted the documents and instructed her to submit a written hearing request, but then refused to accept the recertification documents, denied the hearing request as untimely, and rejected later requests to restore the voucher. Laurette Pinckney died in June 2018. The eviction proceeding continued, and Pinckney alleged that she suffered housing-related harm, anxiety, and emotional distress.

In April 2019, HPD agreed to restore Pinckney’s Section 8 voucher and make payments retroactive to the 2017 termination. Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), which addresses subject-matter jurisdiction, and 12(b)(6), which addresses whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim.

Standing for Different Forms of Relief

The court held that Pinckney had standing to seek monetary relief for alleged past discrimination. Standing is the legal requirement that a plaintiff show a concrete injury connected to the defendants’ conduct that a court decision could remedy. Although Pinckney was not the person directly receiving the voucher, she alleged independent injuries from her association with her mother, including loss of housing assistance while she lived with her mother and emotional distress connected to the threatened eviction.

The court held that Pinckney lacked standing to seek declaratory relief. The claim concerned alleged past conduct involving her deceased mother, and the voucher had been restored, so Pinckney did not show a sufficient likelihood of being wronged in the same way again. Defendants’ motion to dismiss the declaratory-relief claim was granted.

The court also held that Pinckney lacked standing to seek an injunction requiring HPD to adopt policies and conduct training concerning reasonable accommodations. Pinckney’s theory depended on a series of future events: that she might miss a recertification deadline, might request an accommodation, and might be denied one. The court found that this chain of possibilities was speculative and that she was not facing an immediate threat of injury. Defendants’ motion to dismiss the injunctive-relief claim was granted.

Failure-to-Accommodate Claim

The court denied defendants’ motion under Rule 12(b)(6) to dismiss Pinckney’s claim for damages based on an alleged failure to reasonably accommodate her mother’s disability. At the pleading stage, the court accepted the complaint’s factual allegations as true and asked whether they plausibly supported relief.

The court explained that a reasonable-accommodation claim generally requires allegations that the disabled person had a disability, the defendants knew or should have known about it, an accommodation was needed to provide equal access to housing or services, and the defendants refused to provide it.

The court found that Pinckney plausibly alleged HPD knew or should have known about her mother’s disability and accommodation request. The allegations included that her mother was in a wheelchair, was accompanied by a home health aide, explained her stroke and hospitalization, and repeatedly sought to submit documents and restore the voucher. The court also found that the alleged refusal to accept the documents, refusal to provide a hearing, and refusal to restore the voucher plausibly constituted a refusal to provide a reasonable accommodation.

The court rejected defendants’ argument that the claim failed because Laurette Pinckney did not use HPD’s written accommodation procedure. The court stated that failure to follow an internal procedure did not necessarily excuse HPD from responding to less formal requests when the agency allegedly understood that the requests were based on a disability.

Disposition

Defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. The motion to dismiss Pinckney’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief was granted. The motion to dismiss her damages claim was denied. The court directed the clerk to close the motion and required the parties to meet and confer about a revised case-management plan.