CIVIL RIGHTS – Fair Housing Act; Sexual Harassment; Punitive Damages 

Posted: 1:00 am Mon, March 22, 2010
By admin
Tags: Civil Rights

(1)Where a tenant sued her landlord under the Fair Housing Act for sexual harassment, discrimination and intimidation, a claim for hostile housing environment created by sexual harassment is actionable under the FHA, and sufficient evidence supported a jury verdict for the plaintiff on her claims of hostile environment, “quid pro quo” sexual harassment, coercion and sex discrimination.

(2)Where the District Court allowed the testimony of a landlord’s former tenants in one tenant’s discrimination action against the landlord, the court properly analyzed the admissibility of each tenant’s “me too” evidence, and the court also did not abuse its discretion in excluding medical records of the tenant’s mental health condition.

(3)Where the District Court reduced a punitive damages award to a tenant who sued her landlord under the FHA from $250,000 to $20,527, the court did not err in submitting the issue of punitive damages to the jury, and while the circumstances of the case and due process did not justify an award 18 times greater than the compensatory damages, the reduction did not adequately reflect the reprehensibility of the landlord’s conduct, and an appropriate award in this case would be $54,750.

(4)Where a District Court awarded attorney’s fees of $20,000 to a tenant in her discrimination action against her landlord under the FHA, and the amount was a significant reduction of the amount requested by the tenant, the court did not err in finding that the tenant was entitled to fees, but the court abused its discretion in failing to conduct a lodestar calculation and in considering the landlord’s ability to pay, and the court holds that because a remand for the determination of attorney’s fees would be inefficient, a reasonable award in the case would be $78,044.

“In lieu of remanding the case to the district court, Quigley requests us to conduct a lodestar calculation and award the appropriate amount of attorney fees…’A request for attorney’s fees should not result in a second major litigation,’…The Eleventh Circuit has interpreted this command to authorize circuit courts to ‘determine for ourselves, once we conclude that the district court has abused its discretion, how many hours were reasonably spent in litigation.’….

“We have not located any cases from our circuit where we have foregone a remand under these circumstances…However, like the First and Eleventh Circuits, we believe the record before us

is clear, remand would be inefficient, and it is necessary for us to determine an appropriate attorney fees award in this case in order to comply with the Supreme Court’s command that “[a] request for attorney’s fees should not result in a second major litigation.”

Opinion concurring in part; dissenting in part; Gruender, J.: “I join all of the Court’s opinion with the exception of the decision to forego a remand to the district court for a proper calculation of the attorneys’ fee award. I do not interpret the Supreme Court’s statement in Hensley v. Eckerhart…about avoiding a ‘second major litigation’ to encourage courts of appeals to usurp the traditional role of district courts in determining the proper fee award….

“I would adhere to our previous cases in which we have uniformly remanded for the district court to re-calculate the proper attorneys’ fee award… On this issue alone, I respectfully dissent.” Judgment is affirmed in part; reversed in part.

Case Number	08-3630/3752
Case Name	Quigley v. Winter
Court	8th U.S. CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
District	Appealed from the Northern District of Iowa
Category	CIVIL RIGHTS
Type	CIVIL OPINIONS