Eviction Due to Crime

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Deborah Brumit v. Granite City, Illinois

Case No.: 22-2828

Officials: Easterbrook, Rovner, and Lee, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Eviction Due to Crime

Deborah Brumit and Andrew Simpson permitted their adult daughter to stay in their leased home occasionally during 2019. One night that June they welcomed their daughter and her boyfriend into their house briefly. After the visitors left, they were arrested for stealing a van. Within days, the City served a “Notice of Violation.” Plaintiffs contested this Notice, but a hearing officer directed plaintiffs’ landlord to begin eviction proceedings. The landlord, who did not want to evict Brumit and Simpson, dragged his feet long enough for them to file this suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983

After the Supreme Court held in HUD v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125 (2002), that a public housing authority may enforce a term in a tenant’s lease allowing eviction if a member of the household or guest commits a crime (even without the tenant’s knowledge), some cities enacted ordinances extending that approach to private leases. The Justices remarked in Rucker that the decision involved subsidized tenancies rather than the regulation of private conduct. 535 U.S. at 135. They added that the approved system also allowed the landlord discretion to decide whether eviction is appropriate. Id. at 133–34. Granite City, Illinois, departed from the Rucker model in both ways. It required private landlords to evict tenants not as a condition of receiving a subsidy but as a matter of regulatory compulsion, and it deprived landlords of any discretion to excuse violations.

In this court, Brumit and Simpson contend that, if they prevail on the merits, they will be entitled to nominal damages, which prevents mootness. This case is moot. The district court’s judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of a justiciable controversy

Vacated and Remanded.

Decided 06/16/23

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