## Facts

- Linda Slakey owned a six-bedroom residence in Amherst, Massachusetts and rented it to six unrelated individuals, each occupying a bedroom and sharing common areas.
- Each lease year, the six tenants signed a single twelve-month joint-and-several lease with total monthly rent stated, without allocating each tenant’s share.
- Tenant turnover was frequent; when a tenant left, the remaining tenants typically advertised the vacancy, interviewed candidates, and selected a replacement.
- The lease reserved to Slakey the authority to accept or reject replacement applicants chosen by the tenants, and it assigned Slakey responsibility for checking references, though she rarely exercised that function.
- Over time, Slakey routinely relied on one tenant, Paul Norris, to advertise vacancies, show the house, interview applicants, and relay recommendations; Slakey generally followed Norris’s recommendations.
- Kriti Arora (also referenced as Aurora), an Indian applicant, applied to fill a vacancy and met the household’s neutral criteria (e.g., student/vegetarian/non-smoker as described in the record).
- Arora alleged that Norris rejected her because she was Indian and that Slakey was liable for housing discrimination based on Norris’s conduct, including under a negligence theory for failing to prevent the discrimination.

## Issues

1. Whether Norris’s alleged discriminatory rejection of Arora could be imputed to Slakey under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(a) and (c), and related federal and state civil-rights statutes, on an agency or authorization theory.
2. Whether Slakey could be held directly liable on the summary-judgment record for discriminatory denial of housing or discriminatory statements connected to the vacancy.
3. Whether Slakey could be liable in negligence for allowing Norris to handle advertising and applicant screening without sufficient supervision or safeguards.

## Decision

- The court granted summary judgment for Slakey.
- The court determined that the summary-judgment record did not support treating Norris as Slakey’s agent for purposes of imposing vicarious statutory liability on Slakey for Norris’s alleged discrimination.
- The court reasoned that Slakey’s limited involvement in the tenant-selection process, and her practice of following tenants’ (and Norris’s) preferences, did not by itself establish the type of control or authority needed to create an agency relationship.
- The court rejected the negligence theory against Slakey on the record presented, concluding there was not a sufficient basis to impose tort liability on Slakey for Norris’s conduct.

## Legal Principles

- Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
- A landlord may face vicarious liability for housing discrimination committed by an agent, but the plaintiff must produce evidence of an agency relationship (actual or apparent authority, or comparable authorization with control) connecting the alleged wrongdoer’s conduct to the landlord.
- A contractual reservation of a right to approve or reject tenants, combined with a landlord’s general willingness to accept others’ recommendations, does not alone establish that a co-tenant screening applicants is acting as the landlord’s agent.
- Negligence liability requires a cognizable duty and a factual basis for breach and foreseeability; on this record, the landlord’s reliance on a tenant to assist with advertising and interviews did not establish negligence.

## Conclusion

*Marya v. Slakey* held that, even where an applicant alleged she was rejected because she was Indian, the landlord was entitled to summary judgment because the evidence did not show the rejecting tenant acted as the landlord’s agent (or with authority attributable to the landlord) and did not support a separate negligence claim against the landlord based on the tenant’s screening conduct.


Marya v. Slakey, 190 F. Supp. 2d 95 (2001)