Two sober living homes embroiled in litigation against the city of Costa Mesa were handed a legal victory in federal court early in the month.
A ruling issued by U.S. District Judge James Selna against Socal Recovery and Raw Recovery in the Central District of California that would have enabled violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Fair Housing Act (FHA), and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) was reversed and remanded by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“They shut them down specifically citing their sober living home group ordinance saying that we didn't obtain a permit, but they wouldn't give us a permit and so we weren't in compliance with their municipal code,” said Los Angeles attorney Garrett Prybylo, who represented the plaintiffs.
“The panel held that Appellants and other sober living home operators can satisfy the ‘actual disability’ prong of the ADA, FHA, or FEHA on a collective basis by demonstrating that they serve or intend to serve individuals with actual disabilities; they do not need to provide individualized evidence of the actual disability of their residents,” Judge Mark J. Bennett wrote in the Jan. 3 decision.
Judges Gary S. Katzmann and Kim McLane Wardlaw were on the panel with Bennett.
Sober living operators provide group homes to individuals who are addicted to alcohol or drug use and are trying to learn a new way of life without depending on substances.
“These people are in recovery and a lot of them are very fragile," said Prybylo. "So what the ruling does is completely eliminates, once and for all, any argument that an operator cannot pursue an ADA, FHA or FEHA action on behalf of their residents, because what the ADA, FHA and FEHA say is that you have standing if you are providing housing to people with disabilities."
Under two Costa Mesa city ordinances, sober living homes were required to be located more than 650 feet away from other sober living homes or substance abuse treatment centers.
"If we prevail, we intend to argue that part of our damages would be the enormous expenditure of resources my clients have had to go through over the last five years, not only in litigating and defending but also the lost revenue from the closure of these homes and we will ask that it be extrapolated out as long as it's permissible under the law," Prybylo added. "We're talking millions and millions of dollars on top of the seven-plus million dollars in taxpayer money the city has spent."