The Sixth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals overturned a
decision by the Northern District Court of Ohio to remand the case of
Cleveland Housing Renewal Project (CHRP) v Deutsche Bank to the
Cleveland Housing Court. The appellate decision held that the trial
court's remand based on the abstention doctrine was improper.
In this case, UDLC Professor, Kermit Lind, is one of the attorneys
representing CHRP. The Clinic has been instrumental in this case and
many other nuisance abatement actions over the past 12 years on behalf
of nonprofit development corporations. The
case against Deutsche Bank, one of Cleveland's largest absentee owners
of homes valued at less than $10,000, has special significance because
it not only makes claims about specific houses in a dangerous nuisance
condition, it also claims that the bank's business practice, of refusing
to comply with municipal and state housing codes prohibiting public
nuisances is illegal. Citing the illegal and destructive impact of
this business practice, CHRP filed suit to have the business practice
declared a public nuisance and ordered abated.
The Court of Appeals specifically held on page 13 of the decision that
the District Court had mistakenly minimized the "strong federal
interest" in affording the German-owned bank a neutral forum. Thus, the
state law claims relating to the use of real property in the City of
Cleveland -- a matter that would appear, as CHRP argues, of purely local
concern -- are to be decided not by a "locally-elected municipal judge"
in a housing court statutorily designated to hear local land use cases,
but in a federal court. A copy of the decision is attached. |
|
|
Sixth Circuit Keeps Housing Nuisance Case Out Of Housing Courtposted Sep 23, 2010 10:00 AM by Kermit Lind |