USCA11 Case: 23-10008 Document: 39-1 Date Filed: 01/31/2024 Page: 1 of 11
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-10008
____________________
OXFORD HOUSE, INC.,
a Delaware not for profit corporation 1010
Wayne Avenue Silver Spring, Maryland 20910,
OXFORD HOUSE-DOTHAN,
OXFORD HOUSE-COOP,
OXFORD HOUSE-DODGE,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
versus
CITY OF DOTHAN, ALABAMA,
an Alabama municipal corporation,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-10008
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-00655-RAH-KFP
____________________
Before WILSON, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Oxford House, Inc. (OHI) is a nonprofit umbrella organiza-
tion which has chartered over 3,000 group homes in the United
States, including three homes in Dothan, Alabama: Oxford House-
Coop, Oxford House-Dodge, and Oxford House-Dothan (collec-
tively, Oxford Houses). Plaintiffs-Appellants OHI and Oxford
Houses1 appeal the district court’s decision in favor of the City of
Dothan, Alabama (the City) on Oxford House’s failure-to-accom-
modate claim under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). After careful re-
view and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.
I
OHI is a 501(c)(3) corporation that developed a sober com-
munal-living concept where residents who are recovering from
1 When referring only to the nonprofit organization, this opinion will use
“OHI.” When referring only to the three group homes, this opinion will use
“Oxford Houses.” When referring to both OHI and Oxford Houses—who to-
gether brought this case and appeal—this opinion will use “Plaintiffs-Appel-
lants.” A central issue in this case is whether the Oxford Houses should be
considered businesses, and because it is not disputed that OHI is a business,
this delineation between entities is critical.
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23-10008 Opinion of the Court 3
alcoholism or drug addiction live together. Typically, between six
and fifteen unrelated residents live in these group homes. OHI pro-
vides charters to the individual houses as long as certain require-
ments are met: (1) the house must be democratically self-run; (2)
the house must be financially self-supporting; and (3) the residents
must immediately expel any resident who returns to drugs or alco-
hol.
In 2018, Alabama contracted with OHI to open group
homes throughout the state, which included the three Oxford
Houses in Dothan. OHI sought to set up utility services at each
property in the name of each house. The City’s policy requires that
if a utility account is to be opened in a business’s name, then that
business must obtain a business license. Dothan municipal code
broadly defines “business” to include “any commercial or industrial
enterprise, trade, profession, occupation, calling, or livelihood, in-
cluding the lease or rental of residential or nonresidential real es-
tate, and every other kind of activity whether or not carried on for
gain or profit.” Dothan City Code § 18-2. The municipal code also
provides that business licenses are free to nonprofit organizations
like OHI and its chartered houses. Therefore, if the three Oxford
Houses are determined to be “businesses” under the municipal
code, they must obtain a free business license in order to open a
utility account, or they must qualify for a reasonable accommoda-
tion.
OHI requested an accommodation for each house, but the
City denied the requests, insisting that all utility accounts opened
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-10008
in associational names (including organizations with similar pur-
poses as OHI) require a business license. Ultimately, OHI employ-
ees had the landlords of the homes, who are not residents, open
accounts for each house.
Plaintiffs-Appellants sued the City for violating the FHA by
requiring the Oxford Houses to obtain business licenses in order to
receive utility service. Plaintiffs-Appellants asserted two claims: in-
tentional discrimination and failure-to-accommodate. Plaintiffs-
Appellants moved for partial summary judgment on their failure-
to-accommodate claim while the City moved for summary judg-
ment on all claims. The district court denied Plaintiffs-Appellants’
partial motion for summary judgment and granted the City’s mo-
tion for summary judgment on all the claims. Plaintiffs-Appellants
timely appealed the denial of the failure-to-accommodate claim.2
II
“We review the entry of summary judgment de novo, exam-
ining the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Sailboat Bend Sober
Living, LLC v. City of Fort Lauderdale, 46 F.4th 1268, 1274 (11th Cir.
2022). We will affirm if “there is no genuine issue as to any material
fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
2 Plaintiffs-Appellants do not appeal the district court’s grant of summary judg-
ment in the City’s favor on the intentional discrimination claim.
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23-10008 Opinion of the Court 5
III
Plaintiffs-Appellants appeal the district court’s grant of sum-
mary judgment in the City’s favor on their failure-to-accommodate
claim. As a preliminary matter, we must decide whether the Ox-
ford Houses are businesses under Dothan City Code. If the Oxford
Houses are businesses and require a business license, we will then
consider their request for an accommodation and failure-to-accom-
modate claim.
A
Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that the Oxford Houses are not
businesses but instead operate as families, and that this familial dy-
namic is critical to resident recovery. However, the City’s defini-
tion of “business” is broad, covering “every other kind of activity
whether or not carried on for gain or profit.” Dothan City Code
§ 18-2. We do not deny the familial nature of the Oxford Houses,
but however familial they are, they still meet the City’s definition
of a “business.” The Oxford Houses engage in not-for-profit activ-
ity: providing support and community to recovering addicts. Each
house elects its own officers and leases property in the house name
rather than the name of a resident, and the residents must abide by
OHI charter requirements, or the house will lose its designation
and affiliation with the institution. As Plaintiffs-Appellants
acknowledge, this is enough to give rise to a business classification
under Dothan’s definition of that term. Therefore, for the pur-
poses of this appeal, the Oxford Houses were properly categorized
as “businesses” by the district court, and we proceed now to Plain-
tiffs-Appellants’ accommodation argument.
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6 Opinion of the Court 23-10008
B
The FHA prohibits discrimination in housing and housing
related matters. 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq. Specifically, “the FHA pro-
scribes a defendant’s ‘refusal to make reasonable accommodations
in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommoda-
tions may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to
use and enjoy a dwelling.’” Sailboat Bend, 46 F.4th at 1280 (quoting
42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B)) (alteration adopted).
To prevail on a failure-to-accommodate claim, the plaintiff
must prove “(1) that he is disabled, (2) that he requested a reasona-
ble accommodation, (3) that the requested accommodation was
necessary to afford him an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a
dwelling, and (4) that the defendant refused to make the requested
accommodation.” Schaw v. Habitat for Human. of Citrus Cnty., Inc.,
938 F.3d 1259, 1264 (11th Cir. 2019) (alterations adopted and inter-
nal quotation marks omitted).
Both the City and Plaintiffs-Appellants moved for summary
judgment on this claim, focusing their arguments on the reasona-
bleness and necessity prongs. The district court did not address the
reasonableness prong. 3 But the district court found that Plaintiffs-
3 The City argues that even if we find that the district court erred on the ne-
cessity prong, we can still affirm on the reasonableness prong. See Gundy v.
City of Jacksonville, 50 F.4th 60, 70 (11th Cir. 2022) (We “may affirm the judg-
ment of the district court on any ground supported by the record, regard-less
of whether that ground was relied upon or even considered by the district
court.” (quoting Kernel Recs. Oy v. Mosely, 694 F.3d 1294, 1309 (11th Cir. 2012)).
Although the City is correct, we decline to affirm on this alternate reason
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23-10008 Opinion of the Court 7
Appellants’ accommodation—waiver of the business license re-
quirement to set up a utilities account—was unnecessary.
“The necessity element focuses on the relationship between
the requested accommodation and the plaintiff’s disability.” Sail-
boat Bend, 46 F.4th at 1280. “The accommodation must (1) actually
alleviate the effects of the plaintiff’s disability and (2) address the
needs created by the plaintiff’s disability.” Id.
Before we turn to Plaintiffs-Appellants’ reasons for why an
accommodation is necessary, we must first address their argument
that the district court improperly applied the summary judgment
standard. Plaintiffs-Appellants spill considerable ink, but their ar-
gument lacks merit.
“The party seeking summary judgment bears the initial bur-
den to demonstrate the basis for its motion, and must identify the
portions of the record ‘which it believes demonstrates the absence
of a genuine issue of material fact.’” Hornsby-Culpepper v. Ware, 906
F.3d 1302, 1311 (11th Cir. 2018) (quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477
U.S. 317, 323 (1986)). “The movant may meet this burden by
demonstrating that the nonmoving party has failed to present suf-
ficient evidence to support an essential element of the case.” Id.
because, as discussed, we find the district court correctly found Plaintiffs-Ap-
pellants’ accommodation was not necessary. On the other hand, Plaintiffs-
Appellants argue that the district court erred in failing to consider the reason-
ableness of the accommodation. But our case law does not require that the
district court address the reasonableness prong if the plaintiff cannot meet the
necessity prong. See Sailboat Bend, 46 F.4th at 1281.
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8 Opinion of the Court 23-10008
“The burden then shifts to the non-movant to establish, by going
beyond the pleadings, that a genuine issue of material fact exists.”
Id. at 1311–12.
The City showed that Plaintiffs-Appellants failed to establish
necessity, which is what the City needed to show to defeat Plain-
tiffs-Appellants’ summary judgment motion. At that point, Plain-
tiffs-Appellants needed to produce evidence of necessity, both for
their own motion and to oppose the City’s motion. As described
below, Plaintiffs-Appellants failed to do so. Thus, the district court
properly assessed the motions for summary judgment.
Turning to the merits, Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that the
City should have waived the business license requirement, con-
tending that the accommodation is necessary because of therapeu-
tic and financial reasons. The district court disagreed and so do we.
First, Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that an accommodation is
necessary for therapeutic reasons. They identify two therapeutic
necessities: the residents’ need for truth, and the residents’ need for
the Oxford House model. Their truth argument goes like this:
“[t]he therapeutic need . . . is that ‘recovery under the Oxford
House model promotes accountability and truth,’ a business li-
cense incorrectly classifies the residents as a business, and ‘having
the residents certify or register themselves as a business when they
are not a business is dishonest and detrimental to their recovery
and the model.’” Oxford House, Inc. v. City of Dothan, No. 1:21-cv-
655-RAH, 2022 WL 17475763, at *8 (M.D. Ala. Dec. 6, 2022) (alter-
ation adopted). But the record does not establish that the residents
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23-10008 Opinion of the Court 9
will be the ones filling out business licenses for these homes. So
far, OHI employees, not residents, have been the ones attempting
to open utilities accounts. There is no evidence to suggest that the
residents’ therapeutic needs would be harmed by—or, indeed, that
they would ever even learn of—OHI employees’ representations
to the City that Oxford Houses are businesses.
Plaintiffs-Appellants also argue that the business license re-
quirement undermines three therapeutic aspects of the Oxford
House model. One such aspect is an Oxford House’s familial envi-
ronment. Plaintiffs-Appellants’ expert testified (1) that an Oxford
House’s familial environment promotes residents’ recoveries and
(2) that being “in actuality” a business would damage that environ-
ment by “negat[ing] the specific activity of developing family bonds
among residents.” But there is no evidence to support what the
expert meant by “be[ing], in actuality, a business,” and Plaintiffs-
Appellants offer no explanation for why filing a business license
would discourage the forming of any familial bonds. Thus, there is
no evidence that an accommodation is necessary to preserve the
therapeutic aspect of the Oxford House model.
Another named benefit of the Oxford House model is that,
by requiring utilities be put in the house name, an Oxford House
prevents any one resident from gaining control over others and
making him or herself invulnerable to expulsion. But again, there
is no evidence that the business license would result in the kind of
unilateral control that the Oxford House model seeks to avoid—
especially if an OHI employee or the individual House’s landlord
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10 Opinion of the Court 23-10008
applies for the license. In fact, registering as a business would avoid
that problem because there would be no danger that the utilities
would be in the name of a resident.
Finally, Plaintiffs-Appellants argue that the business license
requirement undermines the Oxford House model by preventing
the residents from being directly liable to the utility company. One
of Plaintiffs-Appellants’ experts explained that having the utilities
in the name of the house promotes responsibility among those
who live there. Like the district court, we find that this expert evi-
dence does not show how filing a business license would eliminate
this responsibility and thus how opening a utility account without
a business license “actually alleviate[s] the effects of” or “ad-
dress[es] the needs created by” the residents’ disability—i.e., their
addiction. Sailboat Bend, 46 F.4th at 1280. The district court
properly found that there was no therapeutic need to exempt the
Oxford Houses from obtaining a business license for utilities.
In addition to therapeutic reasons, Plaintiffs-Appellants also
argue that an accommodation is necessary for financial reasons.
They maintain that an increase in insurance premiums for the land-
lords will be passed onto the residents through increased rental
rates. Even assuming that the increase in insurance premiums pre-
sented in the district court would be passed onto the residents,
Plaintiffs-Appellants have “adduced no concrete evidence that [Ox-
ford House] residents’ addiction has some causal tie to their inabil-
ity to afford a rent increase.” Sailboat Bend, 46 F.4th at 1280. Plain-
tiffs-Appellants point to one affidavit where, Lori Hortzclaw, a
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23-10008 Opinion of the Court 11
former Oxford House resident and current Regional Manager of
OHI, explains that increasing the insurance premium will result in
a 12% increase in rent, making housing costlier and financially out
of reach for many potential Oxford House residents.
However, this is even less evidence than what we found in-
adequate in Sailboat Bend. Again, assuming that increased costs
would be transferred to the residents, Plaintiffs-Appellants have
provided no evidence about its current residents’ income and their
ability (or inability) to afford rent increases. See id. at 1281.
Holtzclaw’s generalized statements about the risk that residents
will be unable to afford rent increases are insufficient. See id. The
district court properly found that there was no financial need to
exempt the Oxford Houses from obtaining a business license for its
utilities.
IV
Thus, the district court did not err in denying Plaintiffs-Ap-
pellants’ motion for partial summary judgment, nor in granting the
City’s motion for summary judgment on Plaintiffs-Appellants’ fail-
ure-to-accommodate claim. We affirm the district court’s judg-
ment.
AFFIRMED.