Challenge to Adult-Only Areas in Condo Complex Rejected by Justices

The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to overturn an appellate ruling that allowed a large condominium complex in Rancho Mirage to exclude families with young children from adult-only housing and recreational areas.

The appellate decision said that excluding families with children from an adults-only section of the complex was permissible when a reasonable number of units and recreational facilities were also provided for families with children.

In a brief order, the state Supreme Court declined to hear contentions that such a policy violated state civil rights laws prohibiting age discrimination in housing and conflicted with a landmark 1983 ruling by the justices barring adults-only condominium developments.

The justices, without dissent, let stand an appellate court opinion issued in March by Justice Marcus M. Kaufman shortly before he was sworn in as a new member of the state Supreme Court. As customary in such instances, Kaufman did not participate in the case when it came before the high court.

The justices’ refusal to hear a challenge to the appellate ruling makes the decision a binding precedent for trial courts throughout the state. Moreover, the denial of review could signal a new approach by the court to the question of age discrimination.

Expansive Rulings

During the tenure of former Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird, when the court was dominated by liberals, the court issued expansive rulings barring discrimination against families with children in condominium housing and apartment rentals. Conservative critics assailed the rulings as unfair to property owners and senior citizens.

The court, in the wake of the defeat of Bird and two other justices in the Nov. 4 election, is now led by Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas and controlled by a majority of appointees of Gov. George Deukmejian. A philosophical shift to the right is widely anticipated.

Wednesday’s action was welcomed by an attorney for the condominium complex involved in the case.

“We’re very happy,” said Leonard A. Bock of Palm Springs, representing the Sunrise Country Club Assn. of Rancho Mirage. “The action may be indicative of the change in court personnel and that the court is more conservative and more conscious of property owner rights.”

Bock rejected the notion that the action would open the way for arbitrary discrimination in condominium or rental housing. But any complexes that provide separate but comparable facilities for adults and families with children likely will be seen as legally permissible under the ruling, he said.

Attorneys for a group of people challenging the policy in the case were not immediately available for comment.

The dispute before the court involved a mammoth condominium development consisting of 746 units and 21 swimming pools. Under its rules, 331 units and 10 pools were set aside for adults, while 415 units and 11 pools were provided for families with children under age 16. The adults-only area has been occupied largely by retired or semi-retired people.

Ernest and Carol Proud, a couple who had bought a condominium in the adult section but later adopted one child and became guardians to another, challenged the development’s rules, contending that they violated civil rights law.

Joined in Opinion

A Court of Appeal in San Bernardino, in an opinion by Kaufman that was joined by Appellate Justices Joseph B. Campbell and F. Douglas McDaniel, upheld the Sunrise policy.

Kaufman concluded that the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act “does not purport to prohibit all differences in treatment or accommodations offered, only unreasonable, arbitrary or invidious discrimination.”

Nor, he said, did the state Supreme Court’s 1983 ruling barring discrimination in condominium housing or its 1982 decision on apartment rentals preclude an age-based division of facilities that make “reasonable provision” of housing and recreational opportunities for both adults and families with young children.