A federal judge approved a $70,000 settlement Wednesday between a Glenview condominium board and a 10-year-old boy who lives there and was forced to use a rear service entrance because of his wheelchair.
The board of the Triumvera Tower Condominium Association also will be required to discard a rule prohibiting people who use wheelchairs, bicycles or buggies from entering the 16-story building through the front door.
“We’re glad to put this behind us, to move forward, to live in a beautiful building with fantastic neighbors,” the boy’s father, Claudio Trujillo, said Wednesday outside the courtroom. “I’m glad that the rule is out … and that my son can enter the building through a main door.”
The settlement requires the board to pay $70,000 to Jaime Trujillo, who has physical and developmental disabilities, and his parents, Luz and Claudio, Colombian immigrants who came to the U.S. seven years ago.
An additional $10,000 was awarded to the widow of another resident who was told he couldn’t use the front entrance in his wheelchair. The board also was slapped with a $3,500 civil penalty.
Steven Borkan, an attorney representing the condominium board, said the group’s members didn’t realize the rule violated the U.S. Fair Housing Act. When the Trujillos’ lawsuit was filed in March, they allowed people in wheelchairs to use the front door, he said.
The rule was adopted because someone in a wheelchair would have to open two doors at roughly the same time to use the front entrance, which the board felt posed a safety hazard, Borkan said.
“They didn’t know what they were doing was wrong,” Borkan said outside the courtroom. “There was no malice here. They made an honest mistake.”
U.S. District Judge William Hibbler approved the settlement, which also requires the board to complete an education program on the housing act, post a prominent sign indicating compliance and send a letter of apology to the Trujillos.
The settlement stems from the federal lawsuit filed on behalf of the family by Access Living, a Chicago-based advocacy group for people with disabilities. The U.S. Justice Department joined the lawsuit in May.
The Trujillos, who also have a daughter, met with the board last year as they planned to buy a condominium, according to the lawsuit. After Claudio Trujillo mentioned that his son needed a wheelchair, board President Sarah Stollberg indicated that was a problem, the lawsuit said.
Stollberg cited concerns about damage to the front entrance and told Trujillo his son would be prohibited from using it, according to the lawsuit.
After the Trujillos moved in, they found the rear entrance barely wide enough for Jaime’s wheelchair, and for several months he used the front entrance. But in February the board reiterated in a letter that the boy was required to enter through the back door.
On March 4, as Jaime waited for a school bus, Stollberg told his nurse that he couldn’t use the main entrance, the lawsuit said. When the nurse objected, Stollberg “became angry and hostile” and threatened to fine the family $50 every time the boy used the front door, the suit said.
Borkan denied that Stollberg, 78, was ever hostile to the boy or to his family. Stollberg was required to retire as part of the settlement. Her health has suffered as a result of the case, according to Borkan, who said the Trujillos were just after money.
The matter could have been resolved with a phone call or letter instead of a lawsuit, he said.
“It had nothing to do with access and really wasn’t about the Fair Housing Act, but it was about money,” Borkan said. “It was about a pound of flesh. It was about revenge, and that’s wrong.”
The Trujillos say they were simply fighting for their son’s rights.
Said Claudio Trujillo, a front-desk clerk at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago: “He has the right to enter the building from whatever entrance he decides to use.”
