Age Bias in Housing Ads Litigation (Opiotennione v. Bozzuto et al.)
On July 1, 2020, in a historic civil rights action challenging digital discrimination in housing, an older woman seeking to represent a class of thousands of older tenants filed a lawsuit against 10 residential property management companies, including a number of industry leaders, alleging that they denied older prospective tenants the opportunity to receive their paid digital ads for apartments.
The case is the first civil rights lawsuit involving Facebook advertising to name and take legal action against housing companies that have engaged in discrimination when sending paid ads on Facebook. In the lawsuit, Neuhtah Opiotennione, a 55-year-old District of Columbia resident, alleges that some of the largest companies that lease or manage apartments in the nation steered their digital housing ads on Facebook away from older people like her. The lawsuit alleges that this practice violates District of Columbia and Montgomery County (MD) fair housing laws.
The lawsuit seeks a declaration that this type of digital discrimination violates fair housing laws, an injunction to stop this practice in the future, and compensation for a class of older people who were denied housing ads on Facebook by the defendants.
The case has drawn support from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, which filed an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs. In addition, the AARP Foundation Litigation filed its own amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs.
The plaintiff and putative class are represented by PRF Law, Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, and Gupta Wessler PLLC.
The case is known as Opiotennione v. Bozzuto Management Co., No. 20 Civ. 01956 (D. Md.), and is currently pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Case Documents
Media
Michael Kunzelman, Lawsuit accuses property managers of ageist Facebook ads, Fortune (July 1, 2020).
Marie C. Baca, Housing companies used Facebook’s ad system to discriminate against older people, according to new human rights complaints, Washington Post (Sept. 18, 2019).
Ja’han Jones, Housing Firms Used Discriminatory Facebook Ad Tool To Exclude Older Tenants: Lawsuit, HuffPost (Sept. 18, 2019).
