United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U.S. 205 (1972)

Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

No. 71-708

Argued November 7, 1972

Decided December 7, 1972

409 U.S. 205

Syllabus

Two tenants of an apartment complex filed complaints with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development alleging that their landlord racially discriminated against nonwhites, that the tenants thereby lost the social benefits of living in an integrated community, missed business and professional advantages that would have accrued from living with members of minority groups, and suffered from being "stigmatized" as residents of a "white ghetto." The District Court, not reaching the merits, held that the complaining tenants were not within the class of persons entitled to sue under § 810(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The Court of Appeals, in affirming, construed § 810(a) to permit complaints only by persons who are the objects of discriminatory housing practices.

Held: The definition in § 810(a) of "person aggrieved," as "any person who claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice," shows a congressional intention to define standing as broadly as is permitted by Article III of the Constitution, and petitioners, being tenants of the apartment complex, have standing to sue under § 810(a). Pp. 409 U. S. 208-212.

446 F.2d 1158, reversed and remanded.

DOUGLAS, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. WHITE, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which BLACKMUN and POWELL, JJ., joined, post, p. 409 U. S. 212.

Page 409 U. S. 206