GRAND RAPID, MI – When Charles Cairn and his wife, Jinghong Zhao, brought their second child home to their condominium on the city’s West Side, the arrival was greeted with less than joy by their neighbors.

“Congratulations. What are you going to do for housing?” one of their neighbors at Grosse Pointe Estate Condominiums asked the couple, according to a March 26 lawsuit they filed in U.S. District Court.

The condominium association rules barred more than three residents in their three-bedroom two-level unit, according to a lawsuit Cairns filed against the condo association and its property manager, Select One Property Management, Inc.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Fair Housing Act and seeks damages costs associated with their move to Ada, punitive damages and damages for emotional distress, according to Stephen Dane, their Washington, D.C.-based lawyer.

Dane said rules governing the number of occupants in condominiums, apartments or mobile home parks were outlawed in 1989. But many older communities failed to update their rules to reflect the law, he said.

A woman who answered the telephone for Select One denied the allegations, saying she was unaware of the lawsuit. “We would never force anyone to leave because of a child. It is not a senior community,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.

Elizabeth Stoddard, director of advocacy for the Fair Housing Center of West Michigan, said…

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — The family of a University of Alabama student who drowned in the Black Warrior River in April 2012 has filed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit days before Alabama’s statute of limitations would have prevented them from doing so. 

Charles Jones is the father of Tre Jones, a 20-year-old University of Alabama student who fell into the river during a sorority’s party on the Bama Belle riverboat in April 2012. He filed the lawsuit Friday and wants $10 million for his son’s death, claiming that several parties should be held responsible for it.

Charles Jones alleges that several people were tasked with making sure no underage passengers drank alcohol that night but failed to keep his son from doing so. He also complains that not enough was done to try to save Tre as soon as he fell in the water. According to the lawsuit, a deckhand saw the man fall overboard and struggle on the surface of the river, but boat officials made no effort to stop immediately and attempt to rescue him. Divers found his body in deep water around 3 p.m. the following day.

According to the complaint, an autopsy indicated the student’s cause of death was drowning and acute alcohol intoxication, and a toxicology report showed his blood alcohol content to be .133 g/100 ml.

Included in the defendants Charles Jones named in the lawsuit are the Tuskaloosa Riverboat Company, who owned and operated the Bama Belle at the time; Stand Alone Security, a local company hired to keep the party…