I finally found the time to read the Fortin vs Green case which was brought to my attention several months ago by MassLandlords. I wanted to actually read it to see if it was as ridiculous as I thought it would be based on what I was told about it and, yes, it is. This is a case where the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (the MCAD) found that the landlord discriminated against the tenant by not allowing them to have a dog and made the landlord and the property manager pay $88,577.10 just for that!
The MCAD is a biased and very flawed organization. They are a quasi-judicial and a quasi-governmental organization. They are maybe some sort of quasi-Executive Branch organization. They are certainly not part of the Judicial Branch of Government. They are not a court of law and therefore they need to be completely closed down! They cannot be deciding legal cases about civil disputes.
This case is as good illustration to this point as any of the other MCAD cases. Garbage in, garbage out…
The tenant found herself a boyfriend who moved in at some point without being authorized by the landlord to move in. My understanding is he was not on the lease. At some point he brought a dog which looked like a pit-bull. The landlord had a no-dogs policy and the tenant knew that. But her boyfriend was a diabetic and claimed that even though the dog was untrained he felt that the dog helped him by sensing when his blood sugar was too low which helped him remember to take his medication. The tenant had been late with the rent on several occasions even before the issue of having the dog and the landlord was patient and kind enough to not make a big issue out of it. But after they had the dog in addition to being late with the rent the landlord decided that he will no longer be a good guy and tolerate them to be late with the rent and filed an eviction for non-payment. The landlord asked the tenant to move out because of the non-payment of rent but also he was not happy with the bringing of the dog. If this dog was not licensed in any way and was not professionally trained the dog was just a pet, there was nothing more to discuss. The tenant did not like that and in retaliation for being asked to remove the dog or leave she filed a complaint with the MCAD.
During the hearing, a dog training expert testified that the dog was not trained and not able to detect changes in blood sugar. There are dogs that can detect changes in blood sugar but this dog was not one of them. In other words, this was just a pet as far as the science is concerned.
In a long (49 pages!) and clumsy opinion the MCAD person ignored the expert, basically, it doesn’t matter what the science says, all it matters is how the tenant (or in this case really the non-tenant) feels. If he feels that the dog is helping him, then it’s helping him.
The MCAD person (I am not calling them a judge because they are not a judge and these cases need to be constitutionally decided by real judges, hello!) also said that even though the eviction was for non-payment it’s still retaliation even though the law says there can be no retaliation when the evictions are for non-payment but his reasoning was that because the landlord had tolerated the lateness with the rent before he knew about the dog, he was supposed to continue tolerating it as if though he is obligated to do so and if he stopped tolerating it after the tenant files with the MCAD, that’s retaliation.
To me that’s a ridiculous argument and it falls squarely under “no good deed goes unpunished.”
So in his MCAD wisdom as if money grows on trees he pulled out of thin air that the landlord and rental manager owe:
$20,000 to the tenant for her “emotional distress” because she was so worried about being evicted,
$10,000 for her boyfriend’s “emotional distress” who was not even on the lease and therefore was not an authorized occupant,
$7500 in civil penalty to be paid to MA personally by the Property Manager, his corporate veil casually pierced as if it’s nothing, $5000 by his LLC and $5000 by the owner. (This reminds me how the money and cars stolen by the traffic cops in “civil forfeitures” go to the local police department where the cop who made the stop works. This looks like a similar self-dealing situation to me.)
$41,077 to the MCAD lawyers for representing the tenants because there is no conflict of interest in the MCAD determining how much to pay their own lawyers with someone else’s money.
Total $88,577.10
What a scam!
And then this case was “reviewed” by the “full Commission” which consisted of two other people who pulled out of their you know what a new definition of what a service animal for the disabled is, a definition which completely ignores Science, Precedent and Common Sense.
The “new” definition….are you sitting?… is called an “assistance animal”!
where an “assistance animal” is “an animal who provides emotional and other support to persons with disabilities, whether such animals are trained or untrained”!!!
“Failing to prove that Sam was a service animal does not automatically relegate her status to a mere pet” they said.
Ahh, yes, it does!!! Failing to prove that a dog is a service animal for the disabled means failing to prove that a dog is a service animal for the disabled!
An untrained dog is called a pet regardless of what psychic abilities my grandmother attributes to it. I had a dog that peed a little each time it thundered. This hardly made him a meteorologist.
Also what’s the definition of “disabled” and who is going to determine Disability? Here the MCAD casually mentions that diabetes is a Disability. Shouldn’t someone have a document saying they have Disability? Is the landlord supposed to render a legal opinion on what the definition of disability is? Ok, so MCAD thinks being diabetic is a disability. What about having a fat liver? What about having an acid reflux? I don’t think being a diabetic is a disability per se. There are millions of people who have diabetes. There should be some independent document or classification by a doctor or the Disability Determination Department or something saying that your acid reflux (or whatever) has risen to the level of Disability. Otherwise there are no standards to follow and anybody can claim to be disabled for any reason at any time and then we get into “emotional support” and “assistance” animals.
But seriously, nonsense anti-science decisions like these basically mean that in real life a landlord in MA can no longer have or enforce a “no-dogs except properly licensed and trained service dogs for the disabled” policy because all of that no longer matters. The only thing that matters in MA from now on is if the tenant claims that the dog is helping them in any way or not. It doesn’t matter if the tenant has disability and it doesn’t matter if the dog is trained in any way. The MCAD doesn’t have to clean or replace hardwood floors soaked with urine for years or be liable for dog bites so what do they care. If the tenant claims that a dog is helping them in any way, you better allow them to have that pit-bull or an elephant or whatever the pet is or risk having to pay $88,577.10 and that’s what the MCAD wants you to know (:
2022-12-19 Fortin et al v. Green et al 2024-06-28 FortinEvangelistav.MartinGreenPropertiesetal.