For almost 20 years, a group of parrots and their owner lived at the Rutherford, a co-op apartment building in the ritzy Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan.
For almost as many years, the neighbors complained. The parrots shrieked and squawked, they said. The parrots shouted human words, but not clearly enough for the neighbors to follow their conversations. The parrots seemed to generally drive everyone mad.
After years of complaints, the chorus of caws and cries became unbearable. So the building’s co-op board moved to evict the woman who cared for the animals, Meril Lesser.
In response, Ms. Lesser said her parrots — three birds named Ginger, Layla and Curtis — were emotional support animals who also cared for her.
That set off a bitter and complicated legal dispute that ended last week when the federal government announced a settlement that it said imposed the largest ever financial penalty on a building that had denied its residents’ rights to service animals.
According to the settlement, approved by Judge Jennifer H. Rearden on Aug. 16, the building will pay Ms. Lesser $165,000 in damages and will have to buy her apartment for $585,000. The decree said there was “reasonable cause” to believe the building had discriminated against Ms. Lesser and later retaliated against her.
“This outcome should prompt all housing providers to consider carefully whether their policies and procedures comply with federal law,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.
Peter I. Livingston, a lawyer for the building and its former co-op board president, James Ramadei, who was named in the lawsuit, said in a brief interview that they were glad to put the matter behind them.
Disputes inside New York City co-op buildings, a quirk of the local housing market, are regular features of city life. But few get so bad that they must be resolved by the federal courts.
When you buy a co-op, you purchase shares in a building, much as you would stock in a corporation. The shares you buy in the co-op give you the right to live in an apartment.
And like a corporation, a co-op building is run by a board of directors. Such boards can be powerful, and they are often dominated by big personalities. If you run afoul of your neighbors too many times, the building can revoke your residential rights, effectively evicting you from an apartment that you continue to own.
That is what happened to Ms. Lesser, who could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Ms. Lesser moved into the Rutherford in 1999. In her co-op interview at the time, she did not bring up her birds, said Tony DiPasquale, 77, who has lived there for 48 years and who served on the co-op board for two decades.
“She never mentioned she had any pets,” said Mr. DiPasquale in an interview outside the building on Wednesday. When she did move in with her parrots, he added, “it was never brought up that these were emotional support parrots.”
Over the years, neighbors occasionally complained about the noise, he said. But things escalated when Ms. Lesser acquired a third bird, a 20-year-old Goffins cockatoo named Curtis, sometime before 2015.
Building residents called in investigators from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, who visited the Rutherford 15 times in 2015. But, according to prosecutors, the inspectors never issued a notice for noise violations. The building also never conducted decibel testing, the prosecutors added, nor did it hire a noise prevention consultant.
After a year, the building tried to evict Ms. Lesser, citing the ongoing complaints.
Wendy Slater, a dog walker who has worked with residents of the building for 15 years, said she had often heard residents complain about the parrots.
“Always squawking and shrieking,” said Ms. Slater, 51. “It’s a real issue.”
According to court documents filed by the building, the attempted eviction prompted Ms. Lesser to identify the parrots as emotional support animals for the first time, although prosecutors said she first made the claim in 1999.
During the eviction proceedings, Ms. Lesser supported her claim with a letter from her psychiatrist, who said she needed her brood of parrots “in order to function optimally.” In addition to Curtis, the tiny flock included a 17-year-old bare-eyed cockatoo named Layla and a 15-year-old white-fronted Amazon parrot named Ginger, the psychiatrist said.
Her birds needed to stay together “as they are long-term companions of each other and cannot be separated without negative consequences,” said the letter, which was included in court documents.
Prosecutors said Ms. Lesser kept the parrots “to ameliorate the effects of her anxiety and depression,” which they did by providing her “with purpose and a sense of structure to perform daily tasks,” according to court documents.
There are different sets of federal rules governing animals that provide help to humans. The Americans With Disabilities Act regulates the use of service animals in public places, and only permits dogs and miniature horses that have been trained to do tasks. Rules for so-called assistance animals, which provide support for people with disabilities in their homes, are governed by the Fair Housing Act. Its regulations are broader, allowing for a variety of animals that offer emotional support, as long as they do not pose a risk to people or property.
According to the settlement reached last week, the Rutherford must adopt a reasonable accommodation policy regarding the use of assistance animals. It must also submit quarterly reports to the civil rights unit of the U.S. attorney’s office, so that the federal government can monitor its compliance with the agreement.
Eventually, Ms. Lesser decided to leave the building voluntarily, because the eviction effort had caused her “to suffer severe emotional harm,” according to the district attorney, Mr. Williams.
She filed a fair housing complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2018. Ms. Lesser also tried to sell her apartment, for $467,500, but the Rutherford rejected the proposed buyer, prolonging the dispute, according to Mr. Williams. In response to the failed sale, Ms. Lesser filed a second complaint, accusing the building of unlawful retaliation against her for her discrimination claim.
Rather than settle the case, the co-op board chose to proceed to federal court. That triggered a requirement that the Justice Department file a lawsuit against the building, Mr. Williams said.
Several building residents who were interviewed on Wednesday declined to give their names, citing their fear of the board’s power. A few said the dispute should never have reached this point.
They blamed the board for mismanaging the situation, reserving special ire for Mr. Ramadei, the former board president, who was named in the federal lawsuit. He left the board earlier this year.
Mr. DiPasquale, who stepped down from the board in 2013, said that when he served, building employees would privately ask Ms. Lesser to try to rein in her birds.
“At no point did it reach the point of going to court,” said Mr. DiPasquale, as he walked his pet Chihuahua-dachshund mix, Daisy.
Some residents stayed out of the parrot dispute, watching it from afar. A few, including the comedian Rachel Dratch, were able to appreciate the strangeness of the situation.
“I know,” said Ms. Dratch, interviewed outside the building on Wednesday, “it’s a funny headline.”
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