A federal judge has preserved claims in a proposed class action filed against the New York City government and the embattled New York City Housing Authority for allegedly failing to inspect for and remove lead paint from public housing and declined to let the city off the hook as a defendant in the case.

Ruling on the defendants' motions to dismiss, U.S. District Judge William Pauley III of the Southern District of New York pared down claims, filed by a group of four NYCHA tenants who have young children, that they were deprived of their procedural and substantive due process rights.

The judge found that, while the tenants have come forward with “troubling allegations” that NYCHA stopped inspecting its housing stock for lead paint in 2012 and that officials lied to the federal government about the authority's compliance with due process laws, there is no due process right to a “certain standard of housing.”