Housing Law Commons^™

Housing Sexual Harassment: A Department Of Justice Case Study, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

Sexual harassment in housing-when tenants or prospective tenants are sexually harassed by their landlords, housing providers, or other people associated with their housing-is a clear national problem. In 2019 the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced an initiative to bring attention to this issue, as well as a shared commitment to increased enforcement against harassers.

This enforcement push provides an opportunity for study. In particular, there are now a significant number of complaints and other litigation documents posted to the DOJ's website that provide a convenient and robust sample for analysis. The …

Taming The Kangaroos, Matt Garcia

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Low-level state courts frequently disregard federal law. And though the judgments of these courts have profound legal consequence for millions of Americans, they receive little oversight. Rather than bastions of justice, low-level state courts are too often sites of lawlessness, earning them the shameful label “kangaroo courts.” This article proposes a path forward by which advocates can curb that lawlessness and enforce critically important federal protections.

As part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a broad legislative effort to protect the national economy and public health infrastructure, Congress altered mandatory procedures in eviction suits. Evictions …

The Causes And Impact Of Evictions In Southern Nevada, Mohit Pande

Student Research

As the Southern Nevada region continues to quickly grow, evictions have become a structural feature of the region’s rental market. The region has one of the highest eviction filing rates in the country and this trend has continued to increase in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper examines the availability of market-rate affordable housing and the expansion of subsidized affordable housing to understand how the local housing conditions contribute to the number of evictions in Southern Nevada. Additionally, the paper studies local legal processes, such as the summary eviction system and habitability procedures, to understand the relationship between …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

A Seventh Amendment Remedy For Housing Instability, Gregory Zlotnick

Faculty Articles

After the 2023-2024 Supreme Court term, housing advocates despaired over the expected, yet still unwelcome, decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. While focusing on this case is understandable, this Article suggests that scholars, policymakers, and advocates should train their focus on another, perhaps less expected case from the previous Supreme Court term: SEC v. Jarkesy.

In Jarkesy, the Court affirmed a defendant's constitutional right to a jury trial in an administrative proceeding that sought to enforce a right similar to one found at common law. The Court's capacious interpretation of the Seventh Amendment in Jarkesy has implications for …

Housing Justice Pipeline: Harnessing Housing Clinics To Transform The Right To Counsel Movement, Erica Braudy, Thomas Honan, Tuhfa Begum

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Legal And Policy Responses To Sexual Harassment In Housing, Rigel C. Oliveri

Faculty Publications

The sexual harassment of low-income women by their housing providers is a clear national problem that has only recently become the focus of coordinated nationwide enforcement efforts by federal agencies, including the Department of Justice. While these developments are welcome, the problem requires proactive responses as well. This Essay examines data from a study of all of DOJ's sexual harassment in housing cases and uses this information to identify the most problematic types of housing providers and the most common forms of harassment. Specifically, harassment appears to occur most frequently in private rental housing and is perpetuated by managers (usually …

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Embrace The Suck: Why States And Localities Should Use Property Rights To Fix Broken Housing Voucher Programs, Elizabeth Elia

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The largest federal affordable housing program is an income supplement program called Housing Choice Vouchers (formerly Section 8). When a low-income person has a housing voucher, they find and rent privately owned, market-rate housing. The tenant pays a portion of the rent, and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development pays the rest of the rent directly to the landlord. Unfortunately, most voucher-holders end up renting in high-poverty neighborhoods and more than one in three tenants who receive a housing voucher are unable to use it before it expires. This is because most private landlords choose not to rent …

Housing As A Human Right Through Legislative Action: Comparing France And Scotland’S Enforceable Rights To Housing, Emily Peterson, Jack E. Turman Jr., Ph.D.

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Teaching Client Counseling In The Shadow Of Homelessness, Gregory Zlotnick

Faculty Articles

Working with clients at risk of or experiencing, homelessness teaches personal and professional humility like few other experiences in law school or the practice of law. Yet such sensitive work also provides an opportunity for law students to develop both a keener understanding of their own professional identity-with its capacities and limitations and critical counseling skills. This essay draws upon experiences gained in three distinct law school projects that work with clients at risk of or experiencing, homelessness.

After providing a brief overview of each project, the essay will explore methods used for training and supervising students during their counseling …

Gilead: Municipal Liability For Punitive Damages Under The Fair Housing Act, Robert G. Schwemm

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The 1968 Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) has always been understood to apply to local governments, which have proved to be among the most frequent and significant violators of this law, especially in their opposition to housing of particular value to racial minorities and persons with disabilities. Yet not until the Second Circuit’s decision last year in Gilead Community Services, Inc. v. Town of Cromwell did an appellate court approve an FHA-based punitive-damage award against a municipality. Before Gilead, district courts had generally blocked such awards, applying § 1983’s immunities to protect local governments and their officials from the FHA’s …

Social Purpose Reit, Evan Absher

Faculty Works

The United States grapples with a severe housing affordability crisis, often attributed to restrictive zoning laws, speculative private equity investment, and policy deficiencies. Each of these factors contributes to the housing shortage, but addressing any single factor in isolation is insufficient to resolve the underlying issue. A holistic solution requires increasing housing availability across the entire affordability spectrum through both the production of new units and the preservation of existing affordable housing.

This article argues the misalignment of interests among key local stakeholders—residents, community organizations, and investors is the fundamental cause of the housing crisis. Realignment requires a transformation of …

Controlling The Mischief Of New York’S Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act Through Constitutional Pre-Emption, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

FAPA aimed to ease the burdens of long-delayed foreclosure proceedings by restating the operation of the statute of limitations. It contains provisions across several sections of state statutes that specify that once the six year statute of limitations on actions to foreclose commences, typically by the acceleration of the balance due on the promissory note and commencement of suit, it continues to run, even after the parties have entered into a workout agreement and have dismissed the complaint. By express terms, the Act had immediate effect, such that those lenders who withdrew complaints pursuant to a workout agreement before the …

Mailing It In: Due Process Requires Technology-Driven Safeguards In Public Benefits, Eric Lukoff

Celebrating WCL Student Authors

Due process in safety net public benefit programs requires agencies to employ modern technology in providing notice that is reasonably likely to reach participants. The Supreme Court has held that due process is dependent on the time, place, and circumstances in which it operates. Scholars have further argued that due process is adaptable to changing facts and circumstances over time. Yet, mailed paper notices remain the standard in providing notice to participants in public benefit programs.

Living in poverty today looks significantly different than it did nearly fifty years ago at the time of Mathews v. Eldridge, where the Court …

Housing Justice Pipeline: Harnessing Housing Clinics To Transform The Right To Counsel Movement, Erica Braudy, Thomas Honan, Tuhfa Begum

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Binding Rights: Contractual Federalism And The Right To Housing In Canada, Alexandra Flynn

All Faculty Publications

Canada’s housing crisis continues to deepen, exacerbated by constitutional fragmentation and intergovernmental reluctance to implement human rights-based housing policy. While the federal National Housing Strategy Act recognizes housing as a human right, its application is limited and its legal force is limited to the federal level, leaving provinces and municipalities unbound. This article argues that contract law – particularly conditional funding agreements between the federal government and subnational actors – can serve as a pragmatic and legally coherent mechanism to bind municipalities to housing obligations, including the recognition of housing as a human right. Drawing on the Canada Health Act …

The Law Of The Land: An Analysis Of Recent Reforms To Housing Policy In California, Ryan A.T. Lenney

CMC Senior Theses

While substantial literature exists on the causes of California’s housing crisis, relatively little is known about the state legislature’s attempts to increase housing supply. This study attempts to address that shortcoming by creating a catalog of all recent changes made to land use law in California. It finds that the state legislature has passed 167 laws related to planning, zoning, and entitlement processes over the previous decade. Through an analysis of the content of those laws, this study identifies 12 policy subtopics. Subtopics that were subject to significant political opposition typically saw less legislative activity. Exceptions to this finding may …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Voting Matters: Materiality Considerations And The Shareholder Vote, Renee M. Jones

Seattle University Law Review

For the shareholder franchise to have meaning, shareholders must have access to relevant information to inform their voting decisions. The securities laws’ disclosure requirements play an essential role in informing the shareholder vote.

This Essay focuses on the question of the materiality of information in the context of shareholder voting. It addresses the question of whether ESG-related information is material, positioning the materiality inquiry within the context of shareholders’ voting decisions. It explores the definition of materiality with a focus on the “reasonable investor” concept embedded within the definition. The Essay argues that the implicit expectations of many commentators that …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead

Understanding The Big Three’S Wavering Support Of Environmental And Social Shareholder Proposals, Jeff Schwartz, Jefferson Jensen

Seattle University Law Review

Because of their substantial equity portfolios, BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street (the Big 3) are central players in corporate governance. It is, therefore, critical to understand how they vote. One puzzle is that their support for shareholder proposals on environmental and social matters appears to waiver. In 2020, for instance, BlackRock supported 11.1% of environmental proposals at S&P 500 firms. In 2021, it seemingly reversed course, supporting 55.2%. It then flipped again, supporting 32.1% in 2022. Such statistics suggest that the Big 3 are constantly changing their views on these topics. This Article seeks to better understand whether this is …

Volume 48 Masthead, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 48 Masthead