A Chicago federal judge has closed the door on a legal aid group's lawsuit against an owner of thousands of Chicago apartments for allegedly discriminating against black women renters by allegedly refusing to rent to anyone who has been the subject of eviction proceedings in court, saying the aid organization is attempting to use the case to litigate its preferred policy goals.
While seemingly acknowledging Legal Aid Chicago's point concerning the alleged struggle facing black female renters in Chicago, in particular, under a "no evictions" policy, the judge said Legal Aid Chicago isn't allowed to bring the action, because they can't show how the policy actually harmed them.
"At the end of the day, Hunter Properties has not forced Legal Aid Chicago to divert resources from its bread-and-butter mission of legal representation in housing matters," Seeger wrote in his ruling.
"In fact, its alleged actions are exactly the target of Legal Aid Chicago's work, and its reason for operating."
The decision would end, for now, Legal Aid Chicago's initial attempt to sue Hunter Properties.
Legal Aid Chicago filed the lawsuit in 2023, accusing Hunter Properties of violating federal and state housing discrimination laws.
The lawsuit took aim at the company's "No-Evictions Policy," which allegedly stood as a blanket refusal to rent to anyone who has been evicted or has had an eviction action filed against them by other landlords.
Hunter Properties is a Chicago-based property management company, renting apartments in Chicago and elsewhere. According to court documents, the company leases out about 2,500 apartments at 60 locations in the city. The apartments are primarily considered "lower-priced housing options," according to the court filing.
Legal Aid Chicago is an organization that specializes in providing free legal assistance to people with low income, including those dealing with evictions and other housing issues. The organization is also a supporter of legal reforms in favor of tenants' rights, which would make it more difficult for landlords to evict tenants who owe rent and for other causes.
On their website, Legal Aid Chicago includes a slogan: "Equal Justice Starts Here."
In its lawsuit, Legal Aid Chicago said Hunter's "No Evictions Policy" disproportionately impacted black women renters, who are statistically the demographic most likely to have been subjected to evictions and eviction proceedings.
In his ruling, Judge Seeger cited statistics presented in support of those assertions. He noted black women in Cook County, specifically, "face a 4.9% likelihood of experiencing an eviction case, compared to 3.1% for all other renters in Cook County." And the judge noted that while black people account for 33% of the population of renters in Cook County, 56% of people in eviction proceedings are black.
In the lawsuit, Legal Aid Chicago said alleged blanket prohibitions on renting to people with evictions also harms its organization. They said such policies allegedly force the group to dedicate more time to its work representing people allegedly wrongly denied the opportunity to rent in violation of housing anti-discrimination laws. And they said such policies force the group to dedicate more resources and time to helping people who have been evicted ultimately seal their eviction court records so landlords can't use screening services to find evidence of those evictions and use those records as grounds to refuse to rent to them.
In response, Hunter Properties asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying Legal Aid Chicago has no standing to sue under the law, because they can't show they were actually harmed by the landlord's policies.
Judge Seeger agreed.
While Legal Aid Chicago provided the court with a "long list of activities that Legal Aid Chicago had to do in response to" Hunter Properties' policy, the judge sid that list actually better resembles "a list of what Legal Aid Chicago does to oppose no-evictions policies generally..."
"The complaint is more about Legal Aid Chicago's efforts to fight evictions and no-eviction policies generally, and less about Legal Aid Chicago's dealings with Hunter Properties," Seeger wrote.
"... The theory of standing is that Hunter Properties is engaging in the type of activity that Legal Aid Chicago opposes. So, Legal Aid Chicago believes that Hunter Properties inflicted an injury because it is doing the sort of thing that makes work for Legal Aid Chicago."
The judge said that is not sufficient to allow Legal Aid Chicago to continue with the lawsuit, particularly in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Havens Realty Corp. v Coleman. In that decision, the Supreme Court said a housing assistance agency had to show the actions of a landlord or other organization had "perceptibly impaired" the organization's ability to provide services.
In this case, Seeger said any money Legal Aid Chicago claims it has needed to spend in response to Hunter Properties' "No-Evictions Policy" is virtually indistinguishable from money they would have spent anyway, the judge said.
"Hunter Properties hasn’t targeted Legal Aid Chicago or diverted it from its usual work," Seeger said. "It simply has made Legal Aid Chicago’s core work – litigating eviction cases, pursuing eviction sealings, and educating players in the housing ecosystem about the detrimental impacts of evictions – more necessary, at least in Legal Aid Chicago’s casting."
Creating an analogy, Seeger compared Legal Aid Chicago to a streetsweeper and Hunter Properties to someone throwing candy wrappers on the ground.
But in this case, Seeger said, Legal Aid Chicago hasn't claimed to have had any direct interactions with Hunter Properties, either on their own or on behalf of a client.
"The complaint includes no allegation that Legal Aid Chicago dealt directly with Hunter Properties, or spent any resources helping potential tenants who dealt with Hunter Properties," Seeger said. "It’s like a streetsweeper on the south side of Chicago, suing someone who threw a candy bar wrapper on the street in the north side of Chicago."
Legal Aid Chicago has been represented in the action by attorneys Brian J. Massengill, Megan E. Stride and Julia M. Petsche, of Mayer Brown LLP, of Chicago; Sandra S. Park, of the American Civil Liberties Union Women's Rights Project, of New York; Ameri R. Klafeta and Emily Werth, of the Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, of Chicago; and Eric Dunn and Katherine E. Walz, of the National Housing Law Project, of San Francisco.
Hunter Properties is represented by attorneys John S. Letchinger, Maria A. Boelen and Katharine H. Walton, of the firm of Baker & Hostetler LLP, of Chicago.