St. Paul abruptly withdraws from U.S. Supreme Court housing case

Citing fears of a Pyrrhic legal victory, St. Paul officials have decided to forego an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in a suit alleging that city inspectors were targeting some landlords who rent to low-income and minority tenants. The city says its efforts were focused on eliminating conditions such as rodent infestation, missing dead bolt locks, inoperable smoke detectors, poor sanitation, and inadequate heat. The landlords argued that aggressive code enforcement furthers gentrification and has had a disproportionate impact on minorities, raising questions of discrimination that could have had broad implications for civil rights law. Mayor Chris Coleman said that Saint Paul likely would have won before the Supreme Court. But he and other city officials decided that a victory could substantially undermine important civil rights enforcement throughout the nation. Specifically, attorneys for the city and a host of national civil rights organizations worried that a victory for Saint Paul could weaken "disparate impact" civil rights enforcement, including under the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. A statement issued by the city noted that "This would undercut important and necessary civil rights cases throughout the nation. The risk of such an unfortunate outcome is the primary reason the city has asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the petition." Rather than put the case before the Supreme Court, which was scheduled to hear the case February 29, the city will go to trial against the landlord group in federal district court in Minnesota. The request to withdraw, highly unusual at this late stage of the legal process, was made Friday with the agreement of lawyers for the landlords.