Rutherford Co-op to Pay $165,000 for Violating Fair Housing Act

How much are a couple of parrots worth? If they're support animals for a person with a disability, as the shocked residents of the Rutherford co-op near Gramercy Park just learned, they're worth $165,000 in damages plus $585,000 for the shares of the disabled person's apartment.

Those staggering numbers are part of the consent decree between the federal government and the Rutherford, a 175-unit postwar co-op. The case revolved around the co-op board's refusal to allow Meril Lesser, a shareholder with a disability, to keep support parrots in her apartment, then retaliating against her when she filed a complaint with the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

“This is the largest recovery the Department of Justice has ever obtained for a person with disabilities whose housing provider denied them their right to have an assistance animal," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in announcing the consent decree. 

The legal war began to brew in 2015, when a neighbor of Lesser's complained about alleged noise created by her parrots and called the Department of Environment Protection to investigate 15 times. The DEP issued zero violations, and the co-op retained no record of decibel testing or soundproofing services, according to court documents.

In March 2016, when Lesser asked the board for permission to keep parrots as support animals to help her deal with a disability, the board responded by initiating eviction proceedings. Claiming she was suffering severe emotional harm because of the eviction, Lesser left the apartment in July of 2016. The co-op continued to pursue the eviction proceeding into 2024.

In May 2018, Lesser filed a complaint with HUD, alleging that the eviction proceeding interfered with her fair housing rights. While HUD was investigating, Lesser obtained an offer to purchase her unit for $467,500, but the co-op board rejected the application from the proposed purchaser, prolonging the dispute and, in the eyes of the government, engaging in retaliation against Lesser for asserting her rights.

In January 2021, HUD found probable cause to believe that the co-op board violated the Fair Housing Act. The parties could have settled at this point, but the co-op board chose to proceed to federal court, which required the Department of Justice to file suit against the co-op to resolve the matter in federal court.

Under the consent decree approved by U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rearden, the Rutherford must pay the complainant $165,000 in damages; offer $585,000 to purchase her shares in the cooperative; adopt a reasonable accommodation policy regarding requests for assistance animals; abandon the eviction proceeding in Housing Court; and allow the U.S. to monitor compliance with the consent decree.

The case carries a lesson for all co-op and condo boards, according to U.S. Attorney Williams: "This outcome should prompt all housing providers to consider carefully whether their policies and procedures comply with federal law."