Innovation or Illegitimacy: Remedial Receivership in Tinsley v. Kemp Public Housing Litigation

Through an analysis of Tinsley v. Kemp,' a decade-long institutional reform case aimed at changing Kansas City, Missouri public housing, this Article engages in a case study focused on the receivership remedy in practice. Part I chronicles the decade of litigation and remedial results that turned around the troubled Kansas City Housing Authority ("Housing Authority"). Part II examines the efficacy and legitimacy of court displacement of government actors in the context of institutional reform litigation and compares receivership to other remedial alternatives. Part IMI concludes that while receivership has unique attributes, it is not a wholly extraordinary remedial measure.

It was, however, a resourceful response to the organizational incompetence and dysfunction at the Housing Authority.