Federal judge clears PHA from a civil rights lawsuit over Fairmount fire that killed 12
The lawsuit was filed by Howard Robinson, who lost four of his children in the January 2022 fire. PHA continues to face wrongful-death and negligence lawsuits in state court.
A federal judge on Thursday dismissed the Philadelphia Housing Authority and its officials from a civil rights lawsuit accusing the agency of reckless behavior that caused the January 2022 Fairmount fire that killed 12.
Howard Robinson, the father of four children who perished in the fire, sued PHA, a number of PHA officials, and the City of Philadelphia on behalf of himself and his children. The lawsuit is one of multiple cases related to the tragedy making their way through state and federal courts.
Robinson’s complaint claimed that PHA caused “state-created danger” by reauthorizing an overcrowded unit’s lease and falsifying maintenance records to say smoke detectors in the unit had passed quality checks.
» READ MORE: Fatal Fairmount fire was a once-in-a-generation tragedy. Here’s how it unfolded.
District Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro found that renewal of the lease was “too far removed to satisfy the fairly direct causation” to the devastating fire because it took place six months prior, and the Robinson family knew that the unit was overcrowded but continued to live there.
The Robinsons “were aware for three years that their housing was not in compliance with local housing and safety regulations” and “were aware that their apartment was overcrowded for at least five years before the fire,” Quiñones Alejandro said in the Thursday opinion.
Attorneys representing Robinson — Jordan Strokovsky and Town Law’s Ian Gallo — maintained that “PHA’s deplorable conduct is the reason 12 souls were lost on Jan. 5, 2022, including nine kids.”
“PHA must change its ways to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again,” the attorneys said in a statement.
Strokovsky and Gallo also represent the Robinson family in a wrongful death lawsuit against PHA in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. They said they would continue to fight in state court to hold the agency accountable.
A PHA spokesperson said in a statement that “we have long maintained that PHA and its employees did not violate our residents’ civil rights and did not create the conditions that caused the fire. It was a tragedy.”
Why did the judge rule with PHA?
The Jan. 5, 2022, fire started about 6:30 a.m. after a 5-year-old accidentally ignited a Christmas tree with a lighter in a second floor unit.
The building had no fire extinguisher and no fire escape, and the unit where the fire started had no working smoke detectors.
Twelve of the 14 residents in the upper unit died in the fire.
Robinson argued in the federal lawsuit that PHA is responsible for the conditions that allowed the deadly blaze. In addition, the suit said, PHA policies and practices governing the property violated the Robinsons’ civil rights.
Specifically, the complaint said, PHA’s no-transfer policy for an overcrowded unit, a custom of noncompliance with smoke detector requirements, and a failure to train employees directly caused the fire and the large number of fatalities.
Quiñones Alejandro said that the notion that working devices would have prevented the horrific outcome is speculative. The judge further said the complaint doesn’t explain how “a well-trained employee would have prevented a child from starting a fire in his house.”
Tom Kline, a Kline & Specter attorney representing the family of five people who died in the fire in state and federal court lawsuits against PHA, said it should be up to a jury to decide whether the agency’s actions led to the fire or were “too attenuated,” as the judge ruled. He expects a similar ruling dismissing PHA from the federal case he filed, which is also in front of Quiñones Alejandro.
“We will go in a number of different directions to do whatever is in our power to get a full measure of justice, not only for the victims but for the community of people who are housed by PHA and depend on PHA,” Kline said.
The negligence lawsuits in state court are more straightforward, as they don’t involve complex legal benchmarks required to prove civil rights violations, and are on track to go to trial, according to Kline.
Pennsylvania law caps the total amount that the victims can recover from state agencies — including PHA — at $1 million per incident. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments about the constitutionality of the law earlier this year, and a decision is pending, which could impact the cases.
Philadelphia remains a defendant in the Robinson federal case and the lawsuit brought by Kline & Specter, though city filed motion to dismiss. The city does not comment on active litigation.
» READ MORE: Remembering those lost in the Fairmount fire
How has PHA, and city policy, changed since the fire?
In the 3½ years since the fire, both Mayor Cherelle L. Parker administration and the housing authority under Kelvin Jeremiah have embarked on campaigns to repair and expand the city’s affordable housing supply.
But the larger context remains unchanged. Federal efforts to fund the rejuvenation of the nation’s public housing supply were defeated in the Senate during President Joe Biden’s tenure. Now Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to cut many housing aid programs.
Over a fifth of Philadelphians live in poverty, and as housing prices have escalated in recent years, more families have little choice beyond overcrowded multigenerational homes or unsafe illegal rooming houses.
Under Jeremiah’s leadership, PHA has invested more in its “scattered site” units, individual rowhouses like the one that burned, which were obtained from the private sector over the years. Many of these rowhouses are in neighborhoods that suffered disinvestment amid white flight and that the agency took over as an owner of last resort.
After decades of scandal and mismanagement, when poorly kept scatter-site units were a frequent tension point with neighbors, Jeremiah and his boosters say it is a new day at PHA.
Under his $6.3 billion renewal effort, announced earlier this year, the agency plans to rehabilitate its entire 13,000-unit portfolio while building or acquiring 7,000 more units over the next decade.
Most units around the city are now occupied, and some City Councilmembers have tasked the agency with taking over more vacant property for use as affordable housing.
“A lot of the time folks have a view of PHA that was shaped by decades-old history, not what PHA is currently doing,” Jeremiah said in a 2024 interview.