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Full-Text Articles in Law
Beyond Disparate Impact: How The Fair Housing Movement Can Move On, Rigel C. Oliveri
Beyond Disparate Impact: How The Fair Housing Movement Can Move On, Rigel C. Oliveri
Faculty Publications
Disparate impact theory is a vital tool for fair housing advocates. It allows them to challenge institutional behaviors that harm minority groups and municipal practices that perpetuate long-standing segregated patterns, without having to go through the difficult process of identifying a specific bad actor with explicitly discriminatory motives. Disparate impact theory has been a failure for fair housing advocates. It is overly complicated, infrequently used, and seldom leads to plaintiff success. Moreover, the availability of this theory has led to the underdevelopment of the law surrounding intentional discrimination, which has ultimately made all cases with circumstantial evidence more difficult to …
Bankruptcy Weapons To Terminate A Zombie Mortgage, Andrea Boyack, Robert Berger
Bankruptcy Weapons To Terminate A Zombie Mortgage, Andrea Boyack, Robert Berger
Faculty Publications
Bankruptcy’s strongest public policy is the possibility of a fresh start for a borrower – a way for a debtor to free himself from the burdens of pre-petition obligations and re-commence his or her financial life. A debtor can surrender property burdened by a lien to the lien-holder and thereby release him or herself from ongoing obligations under the loan. This is true even in cases where the collateral’s value is less than the secured loan – for in bankruptcy, a lender’s secured claim is limited to the value of its lien. In chapter 13, a debtor who elects to …
Single Family Zoning, Intimate Association, And The Right To Choose Household Companions, Rigel C. Oliveri
Single Family Zoning, Intimate Association, And The Right To Choose Household Companions, Rigel C. Oliveri
Faculty Publications
Many local governments use single family zoning ordinances to restrict occupancy in residential areas to households whose members are all related to one another by blood, marriage, or adoption. The Supreme Court upheld such ordinances in the 1974 case of Belle Terre v. Boraas, and they have been used to prevent all sort of groups from living together – from unmarried couples who are raising children to college students. This Article contends that Belle Terre is wholly incompatible with the Court’s modern jurisprudence on privacy and the right of intimate association. The case appears to have survived this long because …
Can Associations Have Priority Over Fannie Or Freddie?, R. Wilson Freyermuth, Dale A. Whitman
Can Associations Have Priority Over Fannie Or Freddie?, R. Wilson Freyermuth, Dale A. Whitman
Faculty Publications
An association’s six-month lien priority is sometimes termed a “superlien,” but there is nothing particularly “super” about it; the statute simply provides that an association has a lien with priority over the first mortgage, much like the lien of property taxes in nearly all states. An association’s total lien is effectively split into two components: a lien before the first mortgage for six months of assessments and a lien junior to the first mortgage for any delinquent assessment amount over six months’ worth. In this way, section 3-116 was intended to strike “an equitable balance between the need to enforce …
Disparate Impact And Integration: With Tdca V. Inclusive Communities The Supreme Court Retains An Uneasy Status Quo, Rigel C. Oliveri
Disparate Impact And Integration: With Tdca V. Inclusive Communities The Supreme Court Retains An Uneasy Status Quo, Rigel C. Oliveri
Faculty Publications
This article begins with a brief history of disparate impact theory as it relates to fair housing cases. It then proceeds to an overview of two previous cases on this issue to reach the Supreme Court in recent years. Next, it analyzes the Inclusive Communities opinion, discussing both the Court's affirmation of integration as a fair housing goal and its skepticism of whether plaintiffs can succeed using disparate impact theory in cases like the one at bar. The article concludes by locating the opinion's focus on competing priorities within the historical tension between affordable housing/community development and integration and discussing …
Are Disparate Impact Claims Cognizable Under The Fair Housing Act: Texas Department Of Housing And Community Affairs V. Inclusive Communities Project, Rigel C. Oliveri
Are Disparate Impact Claims Cognizable Under The Fair Housing Act: Texas Department Of Housing And Community Affairs V. Inclusive Communities Project, Rigel C. Oliveri
Faculty Publications
The Fair Housing Act (FHA) makes it illegal to refuse to sell or rent or to "otherwise make unlawful or deny" housing to a person because of a protected characteristic, including race. The case asks the Court to determine whether the FHA covers disparate impact claims, where a plaintiff alleges discrimination based on the disparate impact that a defendant's facially neutral practice has on members of a group who share a protected characteristic.