A federal judge in Connecticut has rejected a request from a tenant-screening services company looking to throw out a lawsuit by a man whose rental application it denied because he had a  shoplifting charge against him.

Attorneys from the Connecticut Fair Housing Center represented plaintiff Mikhail Arroyo, and argued that CoreLogic Rental Property Solutions' assessment of an applicant's criminal record, as in the case of Arroyo, was discriminatory.

The lawsuit now proceeds to the discovery phase.

CoreLogic had argued that tenant-screening companies were not subject to the federal Fair Housing Act. It used information that CrimSAFE, an automated decision-making service, provided to prospective landlords. In Arroyo's case, CrimSAFE determined he had a “disqualifying criminal record.”

Arroyo was charged with retail theft in Pennsylvania in 2014, but the charge, an infraction below the level of a misdemeanor, was withdrawn. There was never any conviction.

In her Monday ruling, Judge Vanessa Bryant said, “Defendant incorrectly suggest that plaintiffs need to show discriminatory animus by blurring the important distinction between plaintiffs' burden at the pleading stage and their ultimate burden of proof. … Plaintiffs' factual allegations meet the minimal burden to suggest an inference of discriminatory motivation.”

Salmun Kazerounian, staff attorney for Connecticut Fair Housing Center, told the Connecticut Law Tribune Thursday, “The housing industry is moving toward these automated decision-making outfits. They spit back numerical scores or decisions.” That, Kazerounian said, is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

Rather, Kazerounian and the lawsuit call on landlords to do a review or assessment of each potential tenant.

If that were done in Arroyo's case, Kazerounian said, the landlord would have allowed him to move in with his mother soon after he'd had a car accident and needed months of rehabilitation. His mother, Carmen, submitted an application for her son to move in with her in her Willimantic housing complex in April 2016. The application was denied for 14 months, until Arroyo got approval in mid-2017, soon after the family filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities.

Kazerounian said the practice of using automated decision-making services, such as CrimSAFE, are discriminatory to prospective tenants such as Arroyos, who is Hispanic.

“Excluding rental applicants because of their criminal records disproportionately harms Latino and African-Americans,” Kazerounian said.

In addition, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on the issue.

“Regardless of the severity of the offense, if that offense does not lead to a conviction, the U.S. Supreme Court has been quite clear that that is not evidence of someone's guilt or proclivity to commit a crime,” Kazerounian said.

Bryant's ruling, Kazerounian said, means “if a landlord will use these types of services, they'd better make sure they do not discriminate based on race, national origin, disability or anything else.”

Representing CoreLogic are three attorneys from Troutman Sanders: David Anthony, Daniel Cohen and Timothy St. George. None of the attorneys responded to a request for comment Thursday.

In court papers, CoreLogic said it should be immune from laws governing the Fair Housing Act because it is ”not a landlord, and it does not establish the criteria by which prospective tenants are evaluated.” In addition, the company also said it “is not informed of the race or disability status of individuals at the time of their application.”