Case: Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co.

In 1970, two residents of the Parkmerced complex of apartments and town houses in San Francisco filed a lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1982 and the fair housing provisions of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that defendant Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was engaging in discriminatory housing practices. Plaintiffs claimed that, because of the discriminatory practices, they lost the social benefits of living in an integrated community, they missed business and professional advantages which would have accrued if they had lived with members of minority groups, and they suffered embarrassment and economic damage in social, business, and professional activities from being "stigmatized" as residents of a "white ghetto."

On February 10, 1971, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Judge Robert H. Schnacke) dismissed both the complaint and the complaint in intervention due to lack of standing, noting that the plaintiffs had not alleged, "nor can they, that they themselves have been denied any of the rights granted by Title VIII or by 42 U.S.C. § 1982 to purchase or rent real property." Trafficante v. Metropolitan, 322 F.Supp. 352 (N.D. California 1971). On August 6, 1971, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Judge Elizabeth J. Jameson) affirmed the District Court's order of dismissal. Trafficante v. Metropolitan, 446 F.2d 1158 (9th Cir. 1971). The Supreme Court granted certiorari on February 22, 1972. Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, 405 U.S. 915 (1972). On December 7, 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court (Justice William O. Douglas) reversed the Circuit Court order, holding that 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). Trafficante v. Metropolitan, 409 U.S. 205 (1972). On remand to the District Court, the case was subsequently settled.

We have no further information on this matter.