## Facts

- Waples owned and operated a mobile-home park in Virginia where residents leased lots for their mobile homes.
- Waples adopted a lease-renewal policy requiring every adult occupant to provide documentation proving lawful immigration status.
- Adult occupants who could not provide acceptable documentation were ineligible to renew their leases and faced eviction.
- Four Latino immigrant couples who lived (or had lived) in the park challenged the policy under the Fair Housing Act (FHA), alleging disparate impact based on national origin (Latino).
- Plaintiffs relied on statistical evidence that undocumented status was significantly more prevalent among Latinos in Virginia (about 36.4%) than among non-Latinos (about 3.6%), and argued the policy therefore disproportionately harmed Latinos.

## Issues

1. Whether plaintiffs presented sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie FHA disparate-impact claim by showing the immigration-documentation policy caused a disproportionately adverse effect on Latinos.
2. Whether plaintiffs satisfied the “robust causal connection” requirement for disparate-impact liability by relying on statewide demographic statistics rather than tenant- or property-specific data.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Waples and remanded.
- The court held plaintiffs identified a specific, facially neutral policy and produced evidence permitting a reasonable inference that the policy caused a disparate impact on Latinos.
- The court rejected the view that “robust causation” required tenant-by-tenant or property-specific data in every case at the prima facie stage.
- A dissent would have affirmed, reasoning that statewide statistics were too general to meet the causation requirement.

## Legal Principles

- FHA disparate-impact claims must target a specific policy or practice, not broad allegations of unequal treatment.
- At the prima facie stage, plaintiffs must present evidence allowing a reasonable inference that the challenged policy caused a significant disproportionate adverse effect on a protected group.
- The “robust causality” requirement bars liability for disparities not caused by the defendant, but does not categorically require property-specific statistical proof at summary judgment.
- Once a prima facie disparate impact is shown, the burden shifts to the defendant to prove the practice is necessary to achieve a substantial, legitimate, nondiscriminatory interest; plaintiffs may then show a less discriminatory alternative.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit held that a lease-renewal rule conditioning occupancy on proof of lawful immigration status could support an FHA disparate-impact claim when paired with demographic evidence showing undocumented status is disproportionately concentrated among Latinos, and it returned the case for further proceedings under the FHA burden-shifting framework.


De Reyes v. Waples Mobile Home Park Ltd. P’ship, 903 F.3d 415 (4th Cir. 2018)