InfoBytes Blog
9th Circuit affirms some of Oakland’s claims against national bank
On August 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s decision to partially dismiss an action brought by the City of Oakland, alleging a national bank violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and California Fair Employment and Housing Act. As previously covered by InfoBytes, Oakland alleged that the national bank violated the FHA and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act by providing minority borrowers mortgage loans with less favorable terms than similarly situated non-minority borrowers, leading to disproportionate defaults and foreclosures causing (i) decreased property tax revenue; (ii) increases in the city’s expenditures; and (iii) reduced spending in Oakland’s fair-housing programs. The district court dismissed the City’s municipal expenditure claims, but allowed claims based on decreased property tax revenue to continue. The district court also held that the City could pursue its claims for injunctive and declaratory relief.
On appeal, the 9th Circuit affirmed the court’s denial of the bank’s motion to dismiss as to Oakland’s claims for decreased property tax revenue and the court’s dismissal of Oakland’s claims for increased city expenditures. Specifically, with respect to claims for reduced tax revenue, the appellate court concluded that the “FHA’s proximate-cause requirement is sufficiently broad and inclusive to encompass aggregate, city-wide injuries.” Based on allegations that the City could use statistical regression analysis “to precisely calculate the loss in property values in Oakland’s minority neighborhoods that is attributable to foreclosures caused by [the bank’s] predatory loans,” the 9th Circuit found that Oakland’s claim for decreased property tax revenues “has some direct and continuous relation to [the bank]’s discriminatory lending practices.” Regarding the City’s alleged municipal expenditure injuries, the appellate court agreed with the district court that Oakland’s complaint failed to account for independent variables that may have contributed or caused such injuries and that those alleged injuries therefore did not satisfy the FHA’s proximate-cause requirement. Finally, the appellate court held that the City’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief were also subject to the FHA’s proximate-cause requirement, and that on remand, the district court must determine whether Oakland’s allegations satisfied this requirement.