Water Shutoff May Violate Tenant's Constitutional Rights
In a recent decision from the
Second Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal court found that a city violated both the Equal Protection
and Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution when it terminated water
service to tenants whose landlords failed to pay the water bill. Winston
v. City of Syracuse. Although the case comes from a court outside of Illinois, it is still of interest since it specifically mentions a Seventh Circuit decision involving an Illinois municipality.
A tenant in a multi-family
building had her water services turned off by the City when her landlord
failed to pay the water bill. Winston attempted to pay her landlord’s overdue
water bill in order to restore service; however the City’s ordinance allowed only property owners to make applications and pay
for water services.
As an initial matter, the court found the City had a
rational basis for classifying tenants and landlords differently for the
purposes of opening water accounts with the City because property ownership, as
opposed to rental, allowed City to collect its unpaid water bills more
effectively because it could subject the property to liens.
However, the court found that terminating a tenant’s
water service was not a rational means of collecting the landlord’s water debt
because the tenant (the one directly penalized by the shutoff) was not the debtor. So, the City’s policy of shutting off water to tenants whose landlords failed to pay the water bill could violate the Equal Protection
clause.
Closer to home, the Seventh
Circuit had previously ruled in favor of a tenant on a similar issue involving an Illinois municipality in Sterling
v. Village of Maywood, 579 F.2d 1350 (1978). There, the court found an equal protection violation after the Village refused to turn on water service to the tenant's unit because of the landlord's failure to pay for water service. The court also questioned whether the Village's refusal to provide water service violated her due process rights.
Post Authored by Jessi DeWalt, Ancel Glink
0 comments:
Post a Comment