Woman Awarded $165K in Emotional Support Parrot Case

NYC housing co-op tried to evict her after neighbor complained about noise
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 22, 2024 1:26 PM CDT
Woman Awarded $165K in Emotional Support Parrot Case
The parrots "soothe and comfort" Lesser, prosecutors said.   (Getty Images/JillLang)

A woman who faced eviction after complaints about noise from her three emotional support parrots has been awarded enough money to buy plenty of crackers for Layla, Ginger, and Curtis. The Rutherford, a co-operative apartment building in Manhattan, has agreed to pay $165,000 to Meril Lesser in what the Justice Department says is the largest settlement of its kind.

  • Lesser moved into the Rutherford with two parrots in 1999, and there were no complaints until March 2015, five months after she bought a third parrot, the Washington Post reports. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection visited the building 15 times in the year after the neighbor's complaint and found no violations.
  • The co-op "never conducted any decibel testing or other objective evaluation of the alleged noise complaints," the Justice Department said in a news release. The Rutherford "never retained the services of a noise prevention consultant, architect, engineer, or anyone with qualifications or experience in soundproofing to address the neighbor's complaint."

  • Lesser has anxiety and depression. In a federal lawsuit, prosecutors said the birds "soothe and comfort" Lesser, helping her deal with panic attacks, the Post reports. She included a letter from her psychiatrist in a March 2016 request to be allowed to keep the parrots, but the co-op began eviction proceedings in May that year, reports the AP. She moved out, sublet the apartment, and submitted a complaint to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
  • She put the unit up for sale, but in what prosecutors said was an act of retaliation, the co-op rejected an application to buy it in 2019 for $467,500. Under the consent decree signed by a judge last week, the co-op has to offer Lesser $585,000 for her shares in the co-op.

  • The co-op—which chose to go to court instead of settling the case——also has to "adopt a reasonable accommodation policy regarding requests for assistance animals" and halt eviction proceedings, the AP reports.
  • The Justice Department said this is the largest monetary recovery the government has secured "for a victim of housing discrimination denied the right to an assistance animal." It noted that under the Fair Housing Act, "persons with disabilities may maintain in their homes a wide array of animals as support animals, provided the animal does not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others, and does not physically damage the property."
(More emotional support animal stories.)

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