OCTOBER TERM, 2001
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 00-1770. Argued February 19, 2002—Decided March 26, 2002*
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1437d(l)(6) provides that each "public housing agency shall utilize leases . . . provid[ing] that . . . any drug-related criminal activity on or off [federally assisted low-income housing] premises, engaged in by a public housing tenant, any member of the tenant's household, or any guest or other person under the tenant's control, shall be cause for termination of tenancy." Respondents are four such tenants of the Oakland Housing Authority (OHA). Paragraph 9(m) of their leases obligates them to "assure that the tenant, any member of the household, a guest, or another person under the tenant's control, shall not engage in . . . any drug-related criminal activity on or near the premises." Pursuant to United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations authorizing local public housing authorities to evict for drug-related activity even if the tenant did not know, could not foresee, or could not control behavior by other occupants, OHA instituted state-court eviction proceedings against respondents, alleging violations of lease paragraph 9(m) by a member of each tenant's household or a guest. Respondents filed federal actions against HUD, OHA, and OHA's director, arguing that § 1437d(l)(6) does not require lease terms authorizing the eviction of so-called "innocent" tenants, and, in the alternative, that if it does, the statute is unconstitutional. The District Court's issuance of a preliminary injunction against OHA was affirmed by the en banc Ninth Circuit, which held that HUD's interpretation permitting the eviction of so-called "inno-cent" tenants is inconsistent with congressional intent and must be rejected under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842-843.
Held: Section 1437d(l)(6)'s plain language unambiguously requires lease terms that give local public housing authorities the discretion to terminate the lease of a tenant when a member of the household or a guest engages in drug-related activity, regardless of whether the tenant knew, or should have known, of the drug-related activity. Congress' decision
*Together with No. 00-1781, Oakland Housing Authority et al. v. Rucker et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
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