Bellevue Manor Associates v. United States

This appeal stems from a dispute between private landlords who participate in the federal rent subsidy program familiarly known as “Section 8 housing” and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) concerning what method HUD may use to calculate annual rent adjustments. Its procedural posture calls for us to address a question of first impression in this Circuit: the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in Rufo v. Inmates of Suffolk County Jail, 502 U.S. 367 , 112 S.Ct. 748 , 116 L.Ed.2d 867 (1992) on this Circuit’s prior standard for evaluating a Fed.R.Civ.P. (“Rule”) 60(b)(5) petition brought on equitable grounds in a ease that does not involve what has been characterized as “institutional reform litigation.”

Background

In 1974 Congress enacted the Section 8 low-income housing program embodied in 42 U.S.C. § 1437f (“Section 1437f”). Under that program tenants make rental payments to private landlords based on the tenants’ income and ability to pay, and HUD subsidizes that rent with assistance payments intended to provide the landlords with a fair rent (see Cisneros v. Alpine Ridge Group, 508 U.S. 10, 12, 113 S.Ct. 1898 , 123 L.Ed.2d 572 (1993)).…