## Facts

- Phyllis Shapiro, a tenant-shareholder in a Brooklyn cooperative building, had multiple sclerosis causing progressive mobility impairment, fatigue, and severe bladder dysfunction requiring catheterization.
- The cooperative operated a garage with fewer spaces than apartments and assigned spaces under a first-come, first-served waiting list.
- As Shapiro’s condition worsened, she bought a car and requested an immediate, ground-floor garage space near her building as an accommodation.
- Without proximate parking, she often had to locate street parking at a distance, increasing risk of falls, exhaustion, and incidents of incontinence and humiliation while traveling to and from her apartment.
- The cooperative refused to deviate from its waiting-list policy and required her to wait for a space under standard procedures.
- Shapiro filed a housing discrimination complaint; the United States intervened as plaintiff.
- The district court ordered the cooperative, by preliminary injunction, to provide Shapiro a ground-floor parking space.
- The cooperative and a board president appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the FHAA’s reasonable-accommodation provision required deviation from a neutral first-come, first-served parking policy to provide a disabled tenant an immediate, proximate parking space.
2. Whether the tenant showed entitlement to preliminary injunctive relief, including irreparable harm and likelihood of success on the merits.
3. Whether the requested accommodation was unreasonable because it would impose undue burdens, unfairly disadvantage others, or fundamentally alter the cooperative’s parking system.

## Decision

- The court of appeals affirmed the preliminary injunction.
- It held Shapiro was likely to succeed in proving that an immediate, proximate parking space was a reasonable accommodation necessary to afford her an equal opportunity to use and enjoy her dwelling.
- It agreed that denial of the accommodation posed irreparable harm, including physical risk and noncompensable distress and humiliation connected to her disability-related limitations.
- It found the accommodation feasible and not an undue hardship because available spaces assigned to nonresident building personnel could be reassigned without displacing resident parkers.
- It rejected the argument that no duty to accommodate arose until Shapiro reached the top of the waiting list.

## Legal Principles

- Discrimination under the FHAA includes refusing to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when necessary to afford a person with a disability an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.
- A housing provider may be required to modify facially neutral policies when their unmodified application denies a disabled person equal housing opportunity.
- Reasonableness is assessed using standards associated with disability-accommodation jurisprudence: an accommodation is generally required unless it would impose undue financial or administrative burdens or require a fundamental alteration.
- “Necessity” focuses on whether the accommodation meaningfully enables equal use and enjoyment of the dwelling, not whether the requested benefit is available under existing policies.
- For preliminary relief, serious, disability-related risks to health and safety and harms not readily compensable by damages can support a finding of irreparable harm.

## Conclusion

The court upheld an order requiring a cooperative to provide an immediate ground-floor parking space to a tenant with multiple sclerosis, concluding that the FHAA can require reasonable departures from neutral allocation rules when necessary for equal use and enjoyment and when achievable without undue burden.


Shapiro v. Cadman Towers, Inc., 51 F.3d 328 (2d Cir. 1995)