City of Miami v. Wells Fargo & Co.

The City of Miami filed suit alleging that defendant institutions, major nationwide banks, carried on discriminatory lending practices that intentionally targeted black and Latino Miami residents for predatory loans. The City alleged that this resulted in disproportionate foreclosures on homeowners of those races, diminished property values in predominantly minority neighborhoods, substantially reduced tax revenue for the City, and increased expenditures by the City for municipal services.On remand from the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit held that the City has adequately pled proximate cause in relation to some of its economic injuries when the pleadings are measured against the standard required by the Fair Housing Act. Considering the broad and ambitious scope of the FHA, the statute's expansive text, the exceedingly detailed allegations found in the complaints, and the application of the administrative feasibility factors laid out by the Supreme Court in Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corp., 503 U.S. 258 (1992), the court was satisfied that the pleadings set out a plausible claim. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of the FHA claims and remanded for further proceedings. View "City of Miami v. Wells Fargo & Co." on Justia Law