Settlement likely in Towson University dorm suit

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 4, 2008 by Danny Jacobs

A former Towson University student's federal lawsuit over accessible housing in a campus residence hall is on the verge of a settlement, lawyers for both sides said last week.

Mark Kuchmas filed suit in December 2006 against the university and the owner and management firm behind the five-story Millennium Hall under the Fair Housing and Americans with Disabilities acts. A trial is scheduled for September in U.S. District Court before Judge Richard D. Bennett.

But in a letter dated July 29, a lawyer for the Collegiate Housing Foundation and Capstone Development Corp. asked Bennett to stay the deadlines for further litigation.

"I am pleased to advise you that the parties have reached agreement on the main elements of a settlement," Eric Hemmendinger wrote. "The agreement now must be reduced to a formal agreement and circulated to counsel for all parties for review."

Hemmendinger, of Shawe & Rosenthal LLP in Baltimore, did not return calls seeking comment. The letter says the settlement will take the form of a consent judgment.

Michael A. Anselmi, counsel for Towson University, declined to comment until the settlement was formalized.

Andrew D. Levy, who represents Kuchmas, was cautiously optimistic the agreement would be finalized before start of the trial.

"I'm hopeful but I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch," said Levy, of Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP in Baltimore.

Kuchmas uses a wheelchair due to a degenerative neuromuscular condition. He signed a lease for an accessible unit in Millennium Hall before the spring 2006 semester, but discovered he was unable to use the bathroom and shower area and had trouble maneuvering around his desk and opening doors, according to his complaint.

Millennium Hall, located off Osler Drive, opened in 2000. Last May, Bennett denied the defendants' request to dismiss Kuchmas' lawsuit, arguing that federal law required suits over a building's design to be filed within two years of the building's construction.

Earlier in the case, Bennett found that argument persuasive as to the building's architects. However, the owners and operators of the building have a continuing obligation to provide accessible housing, he ruled; as to them, "the statute of limitations began to run not at the completion of construction of Millennium Hall but rather at the rental of an inaccessible unit."