Fairly-Haze v. Whitesails Cmty. Ass'n. 2d Civ. No. B311574.

This is an unpublished decision but is important with respect to accommodating a request for disabled parking. In this case, an owner had two parking spaces in an underground parking structure. He was handicapped and requested a space close to the elevator. The association did not have authority to reassign parking spaces because they were all deeded. To accommodate the owner, the board offered him exclusive use of a space outside the garage in exchange for one of his other spaces. The owner felt that this was insufficient, and he sued. The court ruled in favor of the association.

MANAGER TAKEAWAY: The regulations enacted under the Americans With Disabilities Act only require that an association grant a “reasonable accommodation” to a disabled person with regard to the disabled person’s ability to use common area elements. In this case, the accommodation was not “reasonable” because the association didn’t have the legal ability to grant it. Important to this case is the fact that in considering any request for a reasonable accommodation from a disabled person, the association can offer a different accommodation to the one requested, and the offer of an alternative will be taken into consideration in any court challenge of the matter. This ability to offer an alternative is especially important where a disabled person asks for theaccommodation of a “service animal,” for example, if the service animal proposed is one with known dangerous propensities, another breed may be offered instead.