The hearing officer who reviews and judges the merits of tenant grievances for the Seattle Housing Authority, a city-sanctioned housing provider, has no legal authority to do his job, according to a civil action suit filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington State.

The lawsuit also claims that contrary to federal rules, SHA has been unlawfully collecting higher rent from tenants who find employment, depriving tenants of money through SHA's administered tenant savings accounts, and failing to garner input from tenant organizations on key matters, including appointing Lawrence Weldon as the organization's hearing officer.

Weldon has neither legal training nor the skills to handle tenant disputes, according to court documents filed on July 28 by tenant-rights group Northwest Justice Project. Nor has he been impartial, the group argues. Over the last three years, Weldon has only judged 6 out of 73 cases in favor of tenants, according to court documents. And the consequences for SHA's 26,000 tenants—some of the city's poorest and disabled residents—can be dire when people stand to lose their homes.

"If they decide you violate rules, they can take your housing away," explains Eric Dunn, an attorney litigating the case for the Northwest Justice Project.

With regards to Weldon's duties, the lawsuit (.pdf) also claims that:

—SHA uses improper methods to schedule hearings that impair the ability of tenants, tenant advocates, and pro-tenant witnesses to attend;
—Grievance decisions are regularly based on, or influenced by, information other than that presented at the hearings;
—Tenants are frequently denied the opportunity to confront or cross-examine opposing witnesses through the presentation of hearsay evidence, and objections to the admission of such evidence are routinely disregarded;
—The written rulings that result from SHA grievance hearings routinely fail to state the reasons for the decision, indicate the evidence relied upon, or demonstrate any meaningful analysis or consideration of the seminal issues.

A case like this could stretch longer than a year, says Dunn, which is why the Northwest Justice Project filed a motion today to block Walden from overseeing tenant grievances until a decision is reached. The striking thing is, this isn't the first time the Northwest Justice Project has fought this fight with the SHA and Weldon. Dunn litigated for a 2008 case against SHA and Weldon—that time concerning the housing authority's Housing Choice Voucher Program (commonly called the Section 8 voucher program). In that case, Weldon was judged to be unqualified to hear Section 8 tenants' complaints.

More after the jump.

But SHA defends Wolden's continued employment as a hearing officer. "It’s important to note that he wasn’t deemed by us that he’s unfit," says SHA communication director Virginia Felton. "It was a consent decree. We agreed that he wouldn’t do those hearings anymore."

"If he’s not competent to do Section 8, he’s not fit to do public housing," counters Dunn. After the 2008 ruling, the SHA agreed to replace Weldon with a panel of attorneys, and "as a result of those reforms, their hearings are fair—they might even be the best in the country," Dunn says.

The earliest a judge could rule on the motion to suspend Weldon is September 10. "If we prevailed in this motion, it would solve the problem immediately," Dunn says, adding that the SHA has a panel of attorneys available to replace Weldon, thanks to the 2008 decree. Dunn further charges that the SHA promised to replace him after that ruling, but that never happened (hence the current lawsuit).

But Felton denies this, and says that even with Section 8's successful program in place, the organization doesn't see the need for employing attorneys outside of court. "SHA's approach is to evaluate each grievance, make sure we have correct info, and determine whether or not we should take an eviction forward to court. Lawyers will be used when we go to court," she explains. "We just don’t use them in the grievance process."