holding that an elevator manufacturer does not have a duty to furnish housing services in a nondiscriminatory manner, and observing that § 3603(a) is “clearly confined to discrimination by providers of housing”
How later courts described this case
- holding that an elevator manufacturer does not have a duty to furnish housing services in a nondiscriminatory manner, and observing that § 3603(a) is “clearly confined to discrimination by providers of housing”
- explaining that the developer is in the best position to vindicate the rights of potential home owners in cases where the direct victims of preemptive discrimination cannot yet be readily identified
- reversing district court’s ruling on plaintiff’s claim under D.C. Human Rights Act because “[h]aving found that [Plaintiff] had alleged no substantial federal cause of action under the Fair Housing Act or sections 1981 and 1982, the district court lacked a solid basis for subject matter jurisdiction. It was appropriate under the circumstances for the court to dismiss [Plaintiff’s] Human Rights Act claims for lack of pendent jurisdiction rather than to address the merits of these novel nonfederal claims.”
- holding that elevator company’s refusal to service elevators in buildings in predominantly African-American neighborhood did not “otherwise make [housing] unavailable”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*724 HENDERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the majority’s conclusions and, in large part, in its analysis but I see no need for any discussion of a purported “sole source” theory of liability. Clifton Terrace did not rely on such a theory and our rejection of the Fair Housing Act claim in no way depends on it. That claim cannot be asserted under subsection 3604(a) or (f)(1) because, as the majority states, these provisions “reach only discrimination which adversely affects the availability of housing,” while withholding of elevator service “is a matter of habitability, not availability.” Subsections 3604(b) and (f)(2), on the other hand, are unavailing because Otis is not among the intended objects of these provisions, namely, as the majority describes them, “those who provide housing and then discriminate in the provision of attendant services or facilities, or those who otherwise control the provision of housing servicés or facilities.” Accordingly, I abstain from the majority’s treatment of “sole source.”