Q: Can I file a Federal civil Rights Complaint in a state court?
Upon having a housing discrimination hearing, with the Equal Rights Division. The judge fail to acknowledge my objections during the hearing.
The judge misrepresented the law concerning the the lease agreement, stating sometime the date you sign it is not the date its affective. The judge would create unsubstantiated reasons to excluded my evidence, such as " I don't know if the landlord ,tenant laws have expired, so this document is excluded. After I had admitted 10 to 12 exhibits into evidence, including admission in testimony from the respondent, the landlord. There was also testimony from witnesses that were subpoenaed, that proved the landlord had committed fraud against me. When I received the judges ruling she failed to acknowledge the evidence that had prove the landlord had violated the Wisconsin Open Housing Law, and she did not apply it. She stated I had not met my burden of proof. The landlord stated in the hearing he had submitted zero evidence to support a defense.
A:
It sounds to me like this would be a FHA (Fair Housing Act) claim and not a civil rights claim. Regardless you can file either an FHA claim or a civil rights claim in state or federal court.
But what the judge said is very true: the date a lease is signed is not necessarily the effective date of the lease. Indeed, it is very common for a lease to have an effective date that differs from the date it was signed.
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