Department of Housing and Urban Development v. Pearlie Rucker et al. (535 U.S. 125)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 26, 2002 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 535 U.S. 125 · 122 S. Ct. 1230
- Decided
- March 26, 2002
- Term
- October Term 2001
- Vote
- 8–0
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. With drug dealers “increasingly imposing a reign of terror on public and other federally assisted low-income housing tenants,” Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988. § 5122, 102 Stat. 4301, 42 U. S. C. § 11901(3) (1994 ed.). The Act, as later amended, provides that each “public housing agency shall utilize leases which ... provide that any criminal activity that threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or any drug-related criminal activity on or off such premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant’s household, or any guest or other person under the tenant’s control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy.” 42 U. S. C. § 1437d(Z)(6) (1994 ed., Supp. V). Petitioners say that this statute requires lease terms that allow a local public housing authority to evict a tenant when a member of the tenant’s household or a guest engages in drug-related criminal activity, regardless of whether the tenant knew, or had reason to know, of that activity. Respondents say it does not. We agree with petitioners. Respondents are four public housing tenants of the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA). Paragraph 9(m) of respondents’ leases, tracking the language of § 1437d(Z)(6), obligates the tenants to “assure that the tenant, any member of the…
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