District Court dismisses discriminatory lending allegations

Courts Fair Lending Fair Housing Act State Issues Appellate Ninth Circuit

On January 27, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California entered a stipulated final judgment and order dismissing the City of Sacramento’s suit against a national bank concerning alleged discriminatory lending following a decision issued by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which 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. (Covered by InfoBytes here.) 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. (Covered by InfoBytes here.) In September 2021, as previously covered by InfoBytes here, the 9th Circuit issued an en banc decision concluding that the Fair Housing Act (FHA) “is not a statute that supports proximate cause for injuries further downstream.” The Oakland decision was binding in this action, and, following Oakland’s decision not to pursue a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, the court dismissed Sacramento’s complaint with prejudice.