## Facts

- Elias Morales, a Vietnam War veteran proceeding pro se, received rental assistance through the HUD-VASH component of HUD’s housing-choice voucher program created under the United States Housing Act.
- Using his voucher, Morales applied for an apartment at Armory Plaza Senior Housing, an affordable senior-housing complex in White Plains, New York, managed by Related Management Company, LP.
- Armory Plaza rejected Morales’s application; the dispute centered on Armory Plaza’s eligibility criteria for senior housing (including an age requirement) and Morales’s contention that he was improperly denied housing.
- Morales sued Armory Plaza, Related Management Company, Armory personnel (including a manager), and federal defendants—the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and a HUD official, Robin Bell.
- Liberally construed, Morales’s amended complaint asserted claims tied to the rejection of his application, including alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and the Due Process Clause.
- Morales also submitted a letter calling the court’s attention to the Supreme Court’s decision in *Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc.*, addressing disparate-impact liability under the FHA.
- The opinion addressed only the federal defendants’ motion to dismiss the amended complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).

## Issues

1. Whether sovereign immunity barred any claims against HUD because Morales did not identify a valid waiver for the relief he sought.
2. Whether Morales plausibly alleged a procedural or substantive due process violation by HUD or Bell, including whether he had a protected entitlement to admission to a particular housing development.
3. Whether Morales plausibly alleged FHA liability against HUD or Bell under either disparate-treatment or disparate-impact theories.
4. Whether Morales stated an APA claim by identifying a reviewable “final agency action” by HUD and alleging unlawful agency conduct.
5. Whether Morales could pursue an implied constitutional damages claim against the federal official based on the pleaded facts.

## Decision

- The court granted HUD and Bell’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint.
- The court dismissed the claims against the federal defendants without prejudice.
- The court granted Morales 30 days to file a second amended complaint.
- The court did not resolve the claims against the non-federal “Armory” defendants in this opinion.

## Legal Principles

- The United States and its agencies may be sued only where Congress has clearly waived sovereign immunity; absent a valid waiver, the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over claims against a federal agency.
- The APA can supply a limited waiver of sovereign immunity for certain non-monetary relief, but APA review generally requires identification of a discrete, reviewable “final agency action” that marks the consummation of the agency’s decision-making and carries legal consequences.
- A procedural due process claim requires (1) a protected property or liberty interest and (2) a governmental deprivation without constitutionally sufficient process; participation in a voucher program does not, without more, create an entitlement to a specific apartment or admission to a particular privately managed housing development.
- Substantive due process requires government conduct that is arbitrary in the constitutional sense; conclusory allegations not tied to concrete federal conduct are insufficient at the pleading stage.
- FHA disparate-treatment claims require factual allegations supporting intentional discrimination by the defendant; FHA disparate-impact claims require identification of a specific, facially neutral policy and a plausible causal connection between that policy and a statistical disparity, consistent with *Inclusive Communities*.
- Implied constitutional damages claims against federal officials are limited; where the complaint does not plausibly plead an underlying constitutional violation (and where immunity and related limits apply), such claims are subject to dismissal.

## Conclusion

In *Elias Morales v. Related Management Company, LP d/b/a Armory Plaza Senior Housing*, the Southern District of New York dismissed Morales’s amended complaint as to HUD and a HUD official because he did not plead a viable basis to sue the federal agency, did not allege a protected entitlement to admission to a particular housing complex sufficient for due process, did not plausibly plead FHA discrimination (including under disparate-impact standards discussed in *Inclusive Communities*), and did not identify a reviewable final agency action to support APA relief; the dismissal was without prejudice and Morales was granted leave to amend.


Elias Morales v. Related Management Company, LP D/B/A/ Army Plaza Senior Housing, 2015 WL 7779297 (2015)