Wetzel v. Glen St. Andrew Living Cmty., LLC, 901 F.3d 856 (2018)

Citation: Wetzel v. Glen St. Andrew Living Cmty., LLC, 901 F.3d 856 (2018)
Parent Document: Wetzel v. Glen St. Andrew Living Cmty., LLC, 901 F.3d 856 (2018)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2018-08-27
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8443663/wetzel-v-glen-st-andrew-living-... ↗

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St. Andrew offers several reasons why, in its view, we should not adopt the analysis we have just laid out. We respond to the most important points. It argues that there is no agency or custodial relationship between a landlord and tenant, and from that it reasons that a landlord has no duty to protect its tenants from discriminatory harassment. But we have not gone that far: we have said only that the duty not to discriminate in housing conditions encompasses the duty not to permit known harassment on protected grounds. The landlord does have responsibility over the common areas of the building, which is where the majority of Wetzel's harassment took place. And the incidents within her apartment occurred precisely because the landlord was exercising a right to enter. More broadly, St. Andrew has a statutory duty not to discriminate. As the Supreme Court said, the FHA "defines a new legal duty, and authorizes the courts to compensate a plaintiff for the injury caused by the defendant's wrongful breach." Curtis v. Loether , 415 U.S. 189, 195, 94 S.Ct. 1005, 39 L.Ed.2d 260 (1974). The same is true of an action under Title VII or Title IX. See Dunn v. Washington , 429 F.3d 689, 691 (7th Cir. 2005) ; Davis , 526 U.S. at 643, 119 S.Ct. 1661.

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