Home Builder’s Ban on Sales to Lawyers Draws an Objection

Did you hear the one about the Bakersfield attorney who was denied a new home by a developer who refused to sell to lawyers because they’re just too litigious?

True to form, the lawyer sued. And having lost, he’s now appealing.

Timothy Liebaert claims that the developer’s anti-attorney policy is more than just a perverse case of lawyer-bashing and violates his civil rights. People in his profession, he says, should have all the protections in buying a home that they are afforded as a result of their race, religion or national origin.

A Kern County judge, however, backed Burlington Homes, ruling last month that such discrimination is permissible when committed for legitimate business interests.

Now the 32-year-old Liebaert, who specializes in environmental law, is ratcheting up the fight. This month he filed legal papers with the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno and added two claims to his lawsuit--false advertising and unfair business practices.

“I recognize the irony here,” Liebaert said, acknowledging that he risks being perceived as a lawsuit-happy lawyer who is proving the wisdom of the developer’s policy. “But one reason I became a lawyer is because I have a strong sense of right and wrong. I feel my family has been wronged.”

Liebaert said he and his wife searched more than six months before finding their five-bedroom dream home near a proposed school, where his two infant daughters could one day walk to class.

He wrote a check to cover the deposit on the $145,900 home. But the check was returned after he casually mentioned to a company salesperson that he was a lawyer.

Neither Burlington Homes President Donavan Judkins nor the firm’s attorney would comment.

But in a letter to Liebaert’s lawyer, attorneys representing the developer said the home builder had a right to avoid selling to certain customers such as lawyers who past experience showed were more demanding and took more time than other clients.

“Home buyers who are also lawyers threaten litigation (requiring significantly greater management time as well as legal fees and resolution costs) at a dramatically higher rate than home buyers who are not lawyers,” the letter said.

Liebaert’s lawsuit claims that attorneys are covered by the state’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, aimed at protecting people based on their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin and disabilities. In recent years, the law has been broadened to cover other factors, such as age and sexual orientation.

“The state civil rights act has been applied broadly, including in one case in which the American Civil Liberties Union was told it couldn’t kick a policeman out of a meeting simply because he was a cop,” Liebaert said. “The courts specifically said that the cop could not be discriminated against because of his profession.”

Many legal experts, however, say the law does not appear to protect people based on their professions.

“It doesn’t specifically say the word ‘professional’ in the statute,” said UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, who specializes in constitutional law. “The question is whether the courts will one day add the word to the statute.”

Maxwell Bleecher, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in antitrust law, said, “He’s going to end up losing. You associate the Unruh Act with the usual types of discrimination we all know and hate. The spirit of the act was not intended to cover lawyers.”

Legal precedents come down on the side of the developer, Volokh said. “One thing that comes with owning a piece of property, a house or rental unit is that you can decide whom to do business with,” he said. “Likewise, people boycott businesses because they make political contributions to causes they disapprove of. Such discrimination is an important aspect of liberty.”

Volokh said the state Supreme Court has ruled that additions to the list of those protected by the Unruh Act should be based on personal, not economic, attributes. A profession is an economic attribute, he said.

“One case involved a medical building that wouldn’t rent to a podiatrist,” he said. “The court said discrimination based on occupation is the essence of business life.”

If anything, said Stephen StworaHail, chairman of the State Bar’s real property law section, the Liebaert case could more clearly define a confusing aspect of state law.

“Many apartment complexes rent to seniors only, so does that mean they’re discriminating against people with children? The courts have found that this type of discrimination is legal,” he said. “But anything can happen with the courts. Unless you have statute that’s perfectly clear, everything is open to interpretation.”

Liebaert and his family continue to rent elsewhere. “We’re Mormons, so we put a great emphasis on family life, and owning a home is important to us,” he said.

The developer, he said, has unfairly preyed on the public’s negative image of lawyers. “As a whole, I don’t think that negative image is deserved,” he said. “Lawyers serve the whole gamut of public interest. . . . Not every attorney is a personal injury lawyer.”