## Facts

- Famata Fahnbulleh worked as an onsite residential business manager at an apartment complex and also lived there with her family.
- Beginning around August 2008, another tenant allegedly subjected her to repeated sexual harassment affecting both her living conditions and her work at the property.
- Fahnbulleh repeatedly reported the alleged harassment to supervisors and property management.
- She alleged management failed to take effective steps to stop the harassment, though the tenant was at one point given a notice to vacate.
- Fahnbulleh obtained a temporary peace order against the tenant in July 2009.
- Around August 2009, management terminated her employment; she was later reinstated after her attorney intervened.
- In 2010, she sued multiple ownership/management entities asserting, among other claims, Fair Housing Act (FHA) hostile-housing-environment liability based on tenant-on-tenant harassment and landlord inaction, plus related employment and state-law claims.

## Issues

1. Whether the Fair Housing Act recognizes a hostile-housing-environment theory of discrimination.
2. Whether a landlord or property manager may be liable under the FHA for tenant-on-tenant harassment when it knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take effective corrective action.
3. Whether the absence of an agency relationship between the landlord and the harassing tenant categorically bars FHA liability at the pleading stage.

## Decision

- The court denied the motion to dismiss as to the FHA theory to the extent defendants sought a categorical rule foreclosing landlord liability for tenant-on-tenant harassment.
- The court held that the FHA can support hostile-environment claims in the housing context.
- The court held that a landlord may be liable where it knew or should have known of discriminatory harassment by a tenant and failed to take appropriate corrective action.
- The court rejected the argument that lack of a landlord-tenant agency relationship, by itself, defeats FHA liability for a hostile housing environment.
- The FHA hostile-environment claim based on alleged notice and ineffective response was permitted to proceed past Rule 12(b)(6).

## Legal Principles

- The FHA’s prohibition on discrimination in housing can reach severe or pervasive harassment that interferes with a person’s use and enjoyment of a dwelling.
- A hostile-housing-environment claim may be evaluated by analogy to hostile-work-environment doctrine under Title VII.
- A landlord’s liability for tenant-on-tenant harassment may rest on the landlord’s own conduct—knowing failure to respond adequately after notice—rather than on vicarious liability through agency.
- At the pleading stage, allegations that the landlord knew or should have known of discriminatory harassment and failed to take effective remedial measures can state an FHA claim.

## Conclusion

The court allowed an FHA hostile-housing-environment claim to proceed where a tenant allegedly engaged in sexual harassment and the landlord, despite notice, allegedly failed to take effective steps to stop it, rejecting a categorical rule that landlords are never liable for tenant-on-tenant harassment.


Fahnbulleh v. GFZ Realty, LLC, 795 F. Supp. 2d 360 (D. Md. 2011)