Fennelly v. Kimball Court Apartments Ltd. Partnership, 14 Mass. L. Rptr. 37 (2001)

Citation: Fennelly v. Kimball Court Apartments Ltd. Partnership, 14 Mass. L. Rptr. 37 (2001)
Parent Document: Fennelly v. Kimball Court Apartments Ltd. Partnership, 14 Mass. L. Rptr. 37 (2001)
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts (state)
Effective Date: 2001-09-25
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8354506/fennelly-v-kimball-court-apartm... ↗

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The parties further cross-move for summary judgment on Count II of the complaint, which alleges that the termination of Fennelly’s lease without good cause and without initiating a summary process action violated the provisions of federal law relating to Section 8 housing and deprived her of the due process of law. It is well established that the Fourteenth Amendment is implicated only by state action. Bello v. South Shore Hospital, 384 Mass. 770, 773 (1981). Thus, the eviction of a tenant from a public housing project implicates due process protections. See Spence v. Gormley, 387 Mass. 258, 266-76 (1982). The conduct of a private actor such as Kimball is subject to the Fourteenth Amendment only if the relationship between the state and the actor is symbiotic in character and the state has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activiiy. See Phillips v. Youth Development Program, Inc., 390 Mass. 652, 656 (1983) (concluding that a Youth Development Program was not a state actor even though it was entirely state funded and was created to serve the Juvenile Court as its sole client, where the state had no control over the Program’s personnel decisions); Bello v. South Shore Hospital 384 Mass. at 774-76 (concluding that a hospital was not a state actor even though it was licensed and regulated by the state and received state and federal funding).

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