Facts

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a complaint against the home-sharing company Airbnb Inc.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
Plaintiff contended that defendant failed to prevent discrimination against African American guests, in violation of Government Code Section 12955.8(a) and (b) and the Unruh Act, Civil Code Section 51. It argued that research found African American guests received a positive response from hosts approximately 42 percent of the time, compared to approximately 50 percent for white guests, a number that was statistically significant.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
Defendant contended that its policies prohibited discrimination based on race and that it had enforced its policies over the years and suspended users who appeared to engage in discriminatory conduct. It argued that the company had not itself engaged in or encouraged intentional discrimination. Moreover, prior to receiving the complaint, defendant had already initiated a comprehensive review of potential racial discrimination on its platform by certain users and had developed a number of innovative policies and procedures designed to detect and eliminate such discrimination.

Result

Pursuant to the settlement agreement entered into between the parties, plaintiff agreed that it would not pursue the complaint against Airbnb in exchange for Airbnb abiding by the provisions of the parties' agreement. This included allowing plaintiff to conduct fair housing testing of certain Airbnb hosts to determine whether they were complying with fair housing laws.