Feds Sue Another Landlord for Discriminating Against an Emotional Support Animal

Federal housing officials allege a New Hampshire landlord violated the Fair Housing Act for refusing to show a unit to two women with emotional support dogs.

Federal housing officials are once again accusing a landlord of illegal housing discrimination for not renting to someone with an emotional support animal.

According to a complaint filed yesterday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), landlord Jack Cohen, who owns 40 rental units in Manchester, New Hampshire, declined to show an available apartment to two prospective tenants when they failed to produce documentation verifying a medical need for their emotional support dogs.

The prospective tenants, a mother and daughter (whose names are redacted in the complaint), had both received a recommendation from doctors for an emotional support animal to cope with their diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.

After Cohen declined to show them the unit, the two unnamed complainants filed a complaint with HUD in August 2023, alleging that he'd discriminated against them on the basis of their disability.

In the charging documents filed yesterday, HUD agreed. The department alleges that Cohen violated the Fair Housing Act—which bars discrimination on the basis of disability—by refusing to show them the unit or let them apply and by requiring documentation that he doesn't require of other prospective tenants.

This is not the first time that HUD has accused property owners of disability discrimination for not allowing emotional support animals on their properties.

In September 2023, HUD sued two New York landlords for refusing to make an exception to their "no pets" policy after a tenant asked for an accommodation for their emotional support cat.

The tenant got the cat anyway before moving out a year later. The landlords settled the HUD complaint by agreeing to pay their former tenant $2,500 for the emotional distress they'd caused her and take a fair housing education class.

Similarly, in 2021, another New Hampshire landlord had to pay out $35,000 to a tenant for not carving out an exemption to their own "no pets" policy for their emotional support animal.

In 2019, a Colorado housing authority was forced to pay $1 million after losing a discrimination lawsuit that challenged its policy of charging a pet fee to people looking to keep emotional support animals.

People can read through the charging documents in these cases and decide for themselves if they think the landlords in question are being jerks or not.

As I've argued before, it's perfectly reasonable for landlords to have and enforce "no pet" policies or charge fees to pet owners. Pets can damage rental units. They also impose costs on other renters by being dirty, noisy, and even dangerous.

The fact that a pet is a doctor-recommended "emotional support animal" doesn't change any of that for the landlord or tenants who'd prefer to live in a pet-free environment.

Calling a pet an emotional support animal does change things legally, however. Pet owners have ably used a combination of doctors' notes and federal disability law to smuggle their pets aboard planes and into businesses that would rather not have them there.

Now, with the aid of HUD and fair housing law, pet owners are figuring out how to do the same when shopping for housing.