In lieu of making closing arguments in front of 19th Judicial District Court Judge Janice Clark, lawyers for the city-parish and Stephen Myers filed post trial memorandums Tuesday in the city’s lawsuit against the landlord regarding the tenants of one of his Baton Rouge rental properties.
At issue is the tenants’ relationship to one another, or more accurately, the lack thereof.
Judge Clark is expected to issue a ruling on the matter within 30 days of Tuesday’s filings. The case centers on the definition of “family” as it relates to residences in the city-parish zoned A1 single family. Section 2.8 of the Unified Development Code defines family as “two or more persons who are related by blood, marriage or legal adoption.”
Myers—who was ordered by the city last year to stop renting a home on Cherrydale Avenue to four unrelated tenants or face the lawsuit he’s currently fighting—contends that definition of family is unconstitutional and in violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act.
However, in its filing Tuesday, the city-parish says Myers has no standing in court to challenge the constitutionality of the definition on the behalf of others, citing a 2008 case against the City of New Orleans in which the court ruled the plaintiff didn’t have standing in a constitutional challenge because they were only hypothetically affected by the law; and not directly affected.
“At trial, defense made considerable hubbub about [Myers’] loss of his ability to lease to unmarried couples with various numbers of foster children, but defense offered no evidence that Myers had ever refused to rent to such lessees,” reads the city-parish’s filing.
Even if the court grants that Myers has standing to make the constitutional challenge, the city-parish says it’s ordinance regarding the UDC definition still meets constitutional requirements. The city-parish concludes that a decision on the definition of family is not one for the courts, but “is a question for the legislature,” adding that “[Myers’] concern with the definition of family is misplaced.”
In Myers’ filing, his attorney says the cases that the city-parish cites as having set precedence in the case do not apply to the issue at hand in Baton Rouge. The filing also says an expert witness called on to testify by Myers, Dana Berkowitz, “presented an abundance of evidence to the court demonstrating how society has changed the way it views the term ‘family’ since the enactment of the UDC in 1954…”
You can see the city’s complete post trial filing here; and Myers’ here.
