The Court of Appeals, in a full-fledged opinion by Judge Halligan, determined the regulations putting a cap on the number of seriously mentally ill persons who can be accepted by a long-term care facility did not facially discriminate against persons with disabilities:
The State of New York’s Department of Health (DOH) licenses certain facilities known as “adult homes” to provide “long-term care, room, board, housekeeping, personal care and supervision to five or more adults unrelated to the operator” (Dept of Health Regs [18 NYCRR] § 485.2 [b]). Regulations promulgated by DOH provide that an adult home may not admit additional residents with serious mental illness if it has a capacity of 80 or more beds and its resident population is over 25% persons with serious mental illness … . Oceanview Home for Adults, Inc., an adult home subject to this admissions cap, claims that those regulations discriminate against persons with disabilities in violation of the Fair Housing Act Amendments of 1988 (FHAA), which extended the protections of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) to persons with disabilities (see 42 USC § 3604 [f] [1]-[2]). We conclude that plaintiff has failed to establish that the challenged regulations facially discriminate against persons with disabilities, and therefore affirm. Matter of Oceanview Home for Adults, Inc. v Zucker, 2025 NY Slip Op 00805, CtApp 2-13-25