Cinnamon Hills Youth Crisis Center, Inc. v. Saint George City , 685 F.3d 917 ( 2012 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
July 3, 2012
PUBLISH Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
CINNAMON HILLS YOUTH CRISIS
CENTER, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
No. 11-4020
v.
SAINT GEORGE CITY,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Utah
(D.C. No. 2:09-CV-00534-TC)
Mary Anne Q. Wood (Kathryn O. Balmforth with her on the briefs), Wood
Jenkins, LLC, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Daniel J. McDonald (J. Craig Smith and Kathryn J. Steffey with him on the brief),
Smith Hartvigsen, PLLC, Salt Lake City, Utah, for the Defendant-Appellee.
Before MURPHY, HOLLOWAY, and GORSUCH, Circuit Judges.
GORSUCH, Circuit Judge.
For years Cinnamon Hills has run a residential treatment facility in St.
George, Utah for young people with mental and emotional disorders. Now, it
wants to expand its operations with a new “step-down” program. Participants
would live in a separate facility with more responsibility and autonomy than other
students, all to help prepare them for reentry into society. Cinnamon Hills hopes
to house its new operation on the top floor of the Ambassador Inn, a local motel it
happens to own. At the same time, it wants to continue operating the ground
floor as a motel open to the traveling public. Aware its unusual plan violates
various city zoning ordinances, Cinnamon Hills sought a variance. When the city
demurred, Cinnamon Hills brought this lawsuit alleging unlawful discrimination
against the disabled. Unable to discern material facts suggestive of
discrimination, the district court granted summary judgment to the city, a
conclusion we ultimately find persuasive.
Cinnamon Hills’s suit invokes three separate federal statutes: the Fair
Housing Act (FHA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the
Rehabilitation Act (RA). Whatever the statutory rubric, though, everyone agrees
that to avoid summary judgment Cinnamon Hills must present facts suggesting
that the city either (1) intentionally discriminated against the disabled, (2)
engaged in conduct that had an unlawful disparate impact on the disabled, or (3)
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failed to provide a reasonable accommodation for the disabled. 1 Accordingly, we
organize our discussion around those theories and discuss each in its turn.
Intentional Discrimination. There are two ways to prove intentional
discrimination (or “disparate treatment”), and Cinnamon Hills attempts both.
First, it says it has direct proof of the city’s discriminatory intent. See Keys Youth
Servs., Inc. v. City of Olathe, 248 F.3d 1267, 1274 n.6 (10th Cir. 2001); Trans
World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121 (1985). Second, it points to
circumstantial evidence and invokes the familiar McDonnell Douglas burden
shifting scheme originally spawned in the Title VII arena but long since equally
entrenched in the FHA, ADA, and RA contexts. See Asbury v. Brougham, 866
F.2d 1276, 1279 (10th Cir. 1989) (FHA); Den Hartog v. Wasatch Academy, 129
F.3d 1076, 1085 (10th Cir. 1997) (ADA); Cummings v. Norton, 393 F.3d 1186,
1189 n.1 (10th Cir. 2005) (RA).
For direct evidence of discrimination, Cinnamon Hills points to various
restrictions in § 10-5-3 of the city code, restrictions requiring residential
treatment centers to locate in rural areas (among other things). Cinnamon Hills
says the restrictions embodied in § 10-5-3 discriminate on their face against the
1
See Reinhart v. Lincoln Cnty., 482 F.3d 1225, 1229 (10th Cir. 2007)
(FHA); Davidson v. Am. Online, Inc., 337 F.3d 1179, 1188-89 (10th Cir. 2003)
(ADA); Chaffin v. Kan. State Fair Bd., 348 F.3d 850, 859-60 (10th Cir. 2003)
(overruled on other grounds as recognized by Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Pruitt,
669 F.3d 1159, 1167 n.4 (10th Cir. 2012)) (RA covers disparate treatment and
disparate impact claims); Tesh v. U.S. Postal Service, 349 F.3d 1270, 1275 (10th
Cir. 2003) (RA prohibits failure to reasonably accommodate).
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disabled. But whatever else § 10-5-3 may be, it isn’t direct evidence of
discrimination against the disabled in this case.
Direct evidence of discrimination is evidence which, if believed, proves
that the decision in the case at hand was discriminatory — and does so without
depending on any further inference or presumption. Shorter v. ICG Holdings,
Inc., 188 F.3d 1204, 1207 (10th Cir. 1999) (overruled on other grounds as
recognized by Fye v. Okla. Corp. Com'n, 516 F.3d 1217 (10th Cir. 2008));
Ramsey v. City & Cnty. of Denver, 907 F.2d 1004, 1008 (10th Cir. 1990). So if a
city zoning official explicitly relies on a discriminatory policy in making the
challenged policy decision, or if he makes discriminatory comments about the
disabled while explaining his basis for the contested decision, that is direct
evidence of discrimination. See EEOC v. Wiltel, Inc., 81 F.3d 1508, 1514 (10th
Cir. 1996).
But in this case, the city did no such thing. It never invoked § 10-5-3 or its
restrictions when rejecting Cinnamon Hill’s request. Neither has the city ever
sought to rely on § 10-5-3 after the fact, during the course of this litigation.
Instead, the city has always and exclusively said its decision to deny the
requested variance rested (and so was to stand or fall) on two distinct code
provisions: a rule limiting stays in motels to 29 days, codified at § 3-2P-3, and a
rule against residential uses in a designated commercial (or “C-3”) zone, codified
at § 10-10-2. And even Cinnamon Hills does not purport to identify anything
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discriminatory about those rules, which make no mention of disabled persons, let
alone discriminate against disabled persons on their face.
Because St. George did not rely upon § 10-5-3 in denying Cinnamon Hills’s
request, that provision can be at most “direct evidence of . . . bias” and not “direct
evidence of discrimination.” Ramsey, 907 F.2d at 1008. To use § 10-5-3 as
evidence, Cinnamon Hills must rely on the inference that whatever animus
towards the disabled is evident on the face of § 10-5-3 also infected the city’s
decision to deny the variance request at issue. And that logical leap places the
evidence squarely in the indirect proof camp. See Wiltel, 81 F.3d at 1514(“Statements which are merely expressions of personal opinion or bias do not
constitute direct evidence of discrimination.”); Ramsey, 907 F.2d at 1008. To be
sure, none of this is to say indirect evidence is unpersuasive or irrelevant. It is
merely to say plaintiffs seeking to craft their cases from indirect evidence must
satisfy the elements of the McDonnell Douglas burden shifting regime, which the
Supreme Court devised specifically to address cases involving evidence of that
sort. Id. at 1007-08.
Turning to that question, we agree with the district court that the
circumstantial evidence Cinnamon Hills does present is insufficient as a matter of
law to satisfy the first step of McDonnell Douglas. At that first step, Cinnamon
Hills bears the obligation of coming forward with a prima facie case of
discrimination, a case that must include evidence suggesting the city denied the
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variance because of the disability of Cinnamon Hills’s residents. Butler v. City of
Prairie Village, 172 F.3d 736, 748 (10th Cir. 1999). To meet this burden,
Cinnamon Hills must produce evidence suggesting that the city denied to it
zoning relief granted to similarly situated applicants without disabilities. Or, if
there are no similarly situated non-disabled applicants, Cinnamon Hills must
show the circumstances surrounding the denial of the variance support a
reasonable inference that the city would have granted to an applicant without
disabilities the relief it denied Cinnamon Hills. Id; see also Almond v. Unified
School Dist. No. 501, 665 F.3d 1174, 1181 (10th Cir. 2011) (explaining
requirements for a prima facie case under Title VII); Vill. of Arlington Heights v.
Metro. Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977).
We agree with the district court that Cinnamon Hills has failed to show a
similarly situated group has been granted zoning relief remotely like the requested
variance. In fact, the only relief the city has granted from the 29 day motel stay
rule according to Cinnamon Hills itself is for law enforcement, emergency
personnel, and 24-hour business caretakers. No one else, with or without a
disability, is exempt. And we agree with the district court that “[n]o reasonable
jury could conclude that law enforcement and emergency personnel [or motel
caretakers] are similarly situated to disabled youth.” D. Ct. Op. at 10. Cf.
Bangerter v. Orem City Corp., 46 F.3d 1491, 1502 (10th Cir. 1995) (to show
intentional discrimination against handicapped residents of group homes, plaintiff
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was required to show “that group homes for the non-handicapped are permitted”
in the city and are not subject to the same onerous requirements). To be sure,
Cinnamon Hills points out that some people are allowed to live in C-3 zones:
hospitals and nursing homes can locate there, and some buildings may be
converted wholesale into condominiums. But there’s no evidence the city has
ever allowed hospitals, nursing homes, or condominiums to open up for business
on the top floor of an operating motel in violation of the 29 day rule. Without
that, Cinnamon Hills lacks evidence that others have been granted the relief it was
denied.
Neither has Cinnamon Hills presented evidence suggesting a reasonable
likelihood that the city would grant a group of non-disabled applicants the relief it
denied in this case. Cinnamon Hills argues that several other residential
treatment facilities faced obstacles to establishing operations within St. George.
But it fails to mention the city ultimately approved most of those facilities. See
ROA at 549, 552. Alternatively, Cinnamon Hills cites a limited number of
statements by city officials expressing concern that too many residential youth
facilities exist in the city. Some of these officials, however, had no known role in
the variance decision in this case. Some of the statements are fifteen or more
years old. Such general statements suggesting bias, unattached to the variance at
issue and made long ago, bear at best limited probative inferential value under our
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precedents. See Turner v. Pub. Serv. Co. of Colo. 563 F.3d 1136, 1144-45 (10th
Cir. 2009).
The same sort of problem recurs when Cinnamon Hills redirects our
attention to § 10-5-3 and its relegation (absent variance) of new treatment
facilities to rural areas. Even under McDonnell Douglas and at its first step
Cinnamon Hills must show some causal “nexus” between evidence of general bias
like that ostensibly reflected in § 10-5-3 and the challenged decision at issue in
this case. See Stone v. Autoliv ASP, Inc., 210 F.3d 1132, 1140 (10th Cir. 2000);
Butler, 172 F.3d at 748. And this it has not done. As we have already seen, the
record shows the city never relied on § 10-5-3 when denying the requested
variance but chose to rest its decision and have it upheld or overturned on entirely
other grounds. The evidence shows as well that the grounds the city did rely on
(the 29 day rule and C-3 zoning restrictions) have been applied equally to those
with and without disabilities. In fact, the record reveals that the most similarly
situated non-disabled comparators Cinnamon Hills has identified are also
categorically excluded from C-3 commercial zones: boarding schools and
housing for colleges and trade schools open to the non-disabled, no less than
residential treatment programs for the disabled, cannot locate there. St. George
City Code § 10-5-2. 2 In light of all this, we agree with the district court that the
2
The record identifies only two student apartments within the commercial
zone. These were approved over ten years ago under a different city code and are
(continued...)
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record does not support a reasonable inference that the city would have granted to
non-disabled persons the particular and surely unusual relief of allowing a
residential youth program on the top floor of an operating motel in a C-3 zone.
Schwarz v. City of Treasure Island, 544 F.3d 1201, 1216-17 (11th Cir. 2008)
(“[E]vidence that neighbors and city officials are biased against recovering
substance abusers” fails to make out a prima facie case “absent some indication
that the recoverers were [or would have been] treated differently than
non-recoverers”). 3
2
(...continued)
allowed to operate today as pre-existing nonconforming uses. See ROA at 554.
3
During oral argument, Cinnamon Hills suggested that its lawsuit included
a challenge not just to the city’s variance decision in this case but also to the
facial validity of § 10-5-3. To the extent that this claim is properly before us, it
isn’t ripe for judicial review. Ripeness doctrine seeks to “prevent the courts,
through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in
abstract disagreements.” Nat’l Park Hospitality Ass’n v. Dep’t. of Interior, 538
U.S. 803, 807 (2003) (quotation omitted); see also Morgan v. McCotter, 365 F.3d
882, 890 (10th Cir. 2004). While there’s nothing premature about deciding
whether the city’s zoning decision on the Ambassador Inn was or was not
unlawful, to the extent Cinnamon Hills is worried that the city might invoke § 10-
5-3 to deny future applications from it aiming to expand at other locations, that
does not present a “direct and immediate dilemma.” Morgan, 365 F.3d at 891(quotation omitted). If and when Cinnamon Hills seeks to expand elsewhere and
encounters difficulty doing so because of the provisions of § 10-5-3, we may need
to pass upon its validity. But it is equally possible that Cinnamon Hills might
choose not to expand, that it might choose to expand in places and ways that
comply with § 10-5-3, or that the city might choose to waive that rule’s
requirements. Whether § 10-5-3 may ever come into play, then, depends on
“uncertain or contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed
may not occur at all.” Id. (quotation omitted).
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Disparate Impact. Unlike a claim for disparate treatment, a claim for
disparate impact doesn’t require proof of intentional discrimination. Mountain
Side Mobile Estates P’ship v. Sec’y of Hous. & Urban Dev., 56 F.3d 1243, 1252
(10th Cir. 1995). Even so, it has challenges of its own. To prove a case of
disparate impact discrimination, the plaintiff must show that “a specific policy
caused a significant disparate effect on a protected group.” Reinhart v. Lincoln
Cnty., 482 F.3d 1225, 1229 (10th Cir. 2007) (quotation omitted). This “is
generally shown by statistical evidence . . . involv[ing] the appropriate
comparables” necessary to create a reasonable inference that any disparate effect
identified was caused by the challenged policy and not other causal factors.
Mountain Side Mobile Estates, 56 F.3d at 1253.
The district court held that Cinnamon Hills has produced no evidence of
disparate impact, and again we agree. Cinnamon Hills offers no formal statistics
or other evidence that might serve that need. It points again to the 29 day rule’s
exception for law enforcement, and the limited exceptions we’ve already
identified to the ban on residences in C-3 zones. But even putting aside whether
the individuals covered by these exceptions are meaningful comparators,
Cinnamon Hills faces a more fundamental problem. It has not identified any
evidence that disabled individuals are less able to avail themselves of these
exceptions than the non-disabled. And of course without evidence of a disparity,
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Cinnamon Hills cannot make out a disparate impact claim. See Reinhart, 482
F.3d at 1230.
Failure to Accommodate. A claim for reasonable accommodation is yet a
different sort of animal. It does not require the plaintiff to prove that the
challenged policy intended to discriminate or that in effect it works systematically
to exclude the disabled. Instead, in the words of the FHA, a reasonable
accommodation is required whenever it “may be necessary to afford [a disabled]
person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B)
(emphasis added).
What does it mean to be “necessary”? The word implies more than
something merely helpful or conducive. It suggests instead something
“indispensable,” “essential,” something that “cannot be done without.” Oxford
English Dictionary, vol. X at 276 (2d ed. 1989). What’s more, the FHA’s
necessity requirement doesn’t appear in a statutory vacuum, but is expressly
linked to the goal of “afford[ing] . . . equal opportunity to use and enjoy a
dwelling.” 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B). And this makes clear that the object of the
statute’s necessity requirement is a level playing field in housing for the disabled.
Put simply, the statute requires accommodations that are necessary (or
indispensable or essential) to achieving the objective of equal housing
opportunities between those with disabilities and those without. See Bryant
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Woods Inn, Inc. v. Howard County, Md., 124 F.3d 597, 605 (4th Cir. 1997);
Schwarz, 544 F.3d at 1227.
Of course, in some sense all reasonable accommodations treat the disabled
not just equally but preferentially. U.S. Airways, Inc. v. Barnett, 535 U.S. 391,
397-98 (2002). Think of the blind woman who obtains an exemption from a “no
pets” policy for her seeing eye dog, or the paraplegic granted special permission
to live on a first floor apartment because he cannot climb the stairs. But without
an accommodation, those individuals cannot take advantage of the opportunity
(available to those without disabilities) to live in those housing facilities. And
they cannot because of conditions created by their disabilities. These examples
show that under the FHA it is sometimes necessary to dispense with formal
equality of treatment in order to advance a more substantial equality of
opportunity. And that is precisely the point of the reasonable accommodation
mandate: to require changes in otherwise neutral policies that preclude the
disabled from obtaining “the same . . . opportunities that those without
disabilities automatically enjoy.” Id. (second emphasis added).
But while the FHA requires accommodations necessary to ensure the
disabled receive the same housing opportunities as everybody else, it does not
require more or better opportunities. The law requires accommodations
overcoming barriers, imposed by the disability, that prevent the disabled from
obtaining a housing opportunity others can access. But when there is no
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comparable housing opportunity for non-disabled people, the failure to create an
opportunity for disabled people cannot be called necessary to achieve equality of
opportunity in any sense. So, for example, a city need not allow the construction
of a group home for the disabled in a commercial area where nobody, disabled or
otherwise, is allowed to live. See Bryant Woods Inn, 124 F.3d at 604; Wisconsin
Cmty. Serv., Inc. v. City of Milwaukee, 465 F.3d 737, 752 (7th Cir. 2006) (en
banc); Forest City Daly Hous., Inc. v. Town of North Hempstead, 175 F.3d 144,
152 (2d Cir. 1999).
And recognizing this necessarily marks the end of the road for Cinnamon
Hills’s reasonable accommodation request. As we have already seen, no one,
disabled or otherwise, is generally allowed to stay in a motel for more than 29
days or to reside in a C-3 commercial zone. To be sure, and as we have also seen,
the city provides some limited exceptions to these rules (for law enforcement
personnel and the like). But there is no evidence that the disabled, because of
their disabilities, are any less able to take advantage of these exceptions than the
non-disabled. Instead, the evidence shows that in seeking to occupy the top floor
of a motel in a commercial zone, Cinnamon Hills is seeking an opportunity that
isn’t available to others rather than one that is. And that’s a result the statute
does not compel.
Cinnamon Hills does not so much dispute this analysis on its own terms as
to ask us to adopt an entirely different and more lenient legal standard. In its
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view, an accommodation should be held “necessary” anytime it would “provide[]
direct amelioration of a disability’s effect.” Aplt. Br. at 54 (quoting Bryant
Woods Inn, 124 F.3d at 604). And in this sense, Cinnamon Hills argues, the step-
down facility is “necessary” because it would ease the transition of emotionally
and mentally troubled youth from residential treatment back into society.
This interpretation, however, overlooks the statute’s language linking a
defendant’s accommodation obligations to the goal of providing “equal
opportunity to enjoy a dwelling.” On Cinnamon Hills’s view, defendants would
be required to ameliorate any effect of a disability — even if doing so only affects
the disabled person’s chances of getting a job or playing a sport and has nothing
to do with enjoying a home. Under Cinnamon Hills’s reading, the Fair Housing
Act would require landlords not just to accommodate disabilities affecting
housing opportunities but to operate as a sort of clinic seeking to cure all ills.
And that is not what the text or purpose of this statute requires.
What’s more, the cases from which Cinnamon Hills purports to extract its
“amelioration” test actually hurt, not help, its cause. The primary case Cinnamon
Hills relies on expressly holds that it is not just amelioration of any effect of the
disability that demands accommodation, but only amelioration of those effects
which preclude the disabled individual from availing himself of an otherwise
available housing opportunity. See Bryant Woods Inn, 124 F.3d at 604. The
other two cases Cinnamon Hills hangs its hat on are Seventh Circuit cases that
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were about the “reasonableness” rather than the “necessity” requirement found in
the FHA. And to whatever extent they might support Cinnamon Hills’s argument
they have been supplanted by the en banc court’s decision in Wisconsin
Community Services, which is entirely consistent with our disposition. See Bronk
v. Ineichen, 54 F.3d 425, 429 (7th Cir. 1995); Dadian v. Village of Wilmette, 269
F.3d 832, 838 (7th Cir. 2001). 4
So it is that, in the end and after independent examination of the record and
the law and each of the plaintiff’s three theories of relief, we find ourselves in
agreement with the district court’s disposition and conclude as a matter of law
Cinnamon Hills has failed to adduce evidence sufficient to withstand summary
judgment. The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
4
We pause to note that in briefing the reasonable accommodation inquiry,
the parties have relied only upon case law interpreting the FHA alone. If the RA
or the ADA embrace a different standard than the FHA, no one has suggested it to
us. As a result, we decline to address the issue. Likewise, given the dispositions
we have reached there is no need for us to consider the various alternative
grounds the city has offered for affirming the district court’s disposition.
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