Attorney General
AG Reaches Settlement with JPNDC & Management Company for Not Accommodating Young Child with Asthma
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The state's Attorney General's office settled with the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation and a large property management company for violating the state's anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws to make a reasonable accommodation for a young child with asthma, despite repeated requests from the child's parent and medical team. According to the AG’s settlement with Peabody Properties, a property management company, and the apartment’s owner, JPNDC, the two companies allegedly failed to adequately address secondhand smoke that was seeping into the young child's apartment. The companies also failed to mitigate a serious rodent infestation in the building that was aggravating the child’s asthma. Peabody Properties serves as property manager for JPNDC’s family rental housing. The two companies initially provided air purifiers for the family’s unit at the time they moved in, but the air purifiers did not stop the presence of secondhand smoke in the unit and the child suffered serious medical consequences as a result. Requests from the child’s parent and medical team to transfer to a non-smoking unit as further reasonable accommodation were ignored, and the child’s health worsened as a result.
Peabody Properties and JPNDC agreed to pay the family $35,000 in restitution, and implement no smoking policies across all of JPNDC's affordable housing units, announced Attorney General Maura Healey on June 8.