Fair Housing Council Of San Fernando Valley v. Roommate.Com LLC

666 F.3d 1216 (9th Cir. 2012)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D operates an internet-based business that helps roommates find each other. When users sign up, they must create a profile by answering a series of questions about their sex, sexual orientation and whether children will be living with them. An open-ended 'Additional Comments' section lets users include information not prompted by the questionnaire. Users are asked to list their preferences for roommate characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation, and familial status. Based on the profiles and preferences, D matches users and provides them a list of housing-seekers or available rooms meeting their criteria. Users can also search available listings based on roommate characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation, and familial status. P sued D alleging that the website's questions requiring disclosure of sex, sexual orientation, and familial status, and its sorting, steering and matching of users based on those characteristics, violate the FHA. Eventually, the district court held that D's prompting of discriminatory preferences from users, matching users based on that information and publishing these preferences violated the FHA and enjoined D from those activities. D appealed.