Higgins v. 120 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place Condominium

Background

Joanne Noel Higgins owns a condominium apartment that she uses as her home. She alleged that she has disabilities resulting from a traumatic brain injury, including vertigo, hearing and vision impairment, severe headaches, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her allegations concerned construction noise and odors, water penetration and mold, and harassment or comments by people associated with the building.

Higgins asserted a claim under the Fair Housing Act, as amended to protect people with disabilities, against the condominium defendants. She alleged that they failed to respond to or provide reasonable accommodations, including notice about noisy renovation work and work performed under the condominium’s bylaws. She also asserted claims under New York State and New York City law, as well as claims involving retaliation, coercion, intimidation, breach of the bylaws, negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, fraudulent inducement, and slander per se.

The condominium defendants moved under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 12(c). A Rule 12(b)(6) motion tests whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim, while a Rule 12(c) motion seeks judgment based on the pleadings. They argued that Higgins had not requested an accommodation because of her disability, that the requested accommodation was not necessary to provide equal use and enjoyment of her home, and that they had not refused a requested accommodation. They alternatively asked the court not to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims if the federal claim were dismissed.

Federal Fair Housing Act Claim

The court applied the elements of a failure-to-accommodate claim under the Fair Housing Act: the plaintiff must have a disability; the defendant must know or reasonably be expected to know about it; the accommodation must likely be necessary to provide an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the home; the requested accommodation must be reasonable; and the defendant must refuse it.

The court held that the amended complaint did not adequately plead those elements. For the alleged November 2019 arm-grabbing incident and the May 2020 odor, Higgins did not allege conduct by a defendant that amounted to a disability-related failure to accommodate. The court also found that Higgins did not allege that she told the condominium defendants that her request for notice of renovation work was an accommodation needed because of her disability. Although she did not have to use the specific words “reasonable accommodation” or “Fair Housing Act,” she had to provide enough information to indicate that the request was connected to her disability and her equal use and enjoyment of the home. Her request that renovation work comply with the bylaws was also treated as a generalized complaint affecting other unit owners, rather than a request for a disability-based accommodation.

The court separately held that the mold allegations did not state a Fair Housing Act accommodation claim. Higgins did not allege that she asked the condominium defendants to remediate the mold as a disability-related accommodation. The court also found that she did not allege facts showing that mold affected her differently because of her disability from how it would affect people without that disability.

The court further held that alleged acts before May 12, 2019 were outside the Fair Housing Act’s two-year limitations period. It rejected Higgins’s argument that the continuing-violation doctrine extended the filing period, finding that the earlier incidents were discrete events rather than an ongoing discriminatory policy or practice.

State-Law Claims and Disposition

After dismissing the federal claim, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims. Supplemental jurisdiction is a federal court’s authority to hear related state-law claims alongside federal claims. The court emphasized that the case was at an early stage, discovery had only recently begun, and the remaining claims involved state-law issues suitable for state courts. It dismissed those claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The court granted the condominium defendants’ motion to dismiss the first claim for failure to state a claim for relief. It dismissed the Fair Housing Act claim without prejudice to Higgins filing an amended complaint within 30 days addressing the deficiencies identified in the opinion. The state-law claims were dismissed without prejudice. The court denied Carlos and Nancy Galliani’s pending motion to dismiss as moot because it declined to exercise jurisdiction over the relevant claim. Judge Lewis J. Liman also directed the clerk to close the specified motions and lift the stay imposed on November 16, 2021.