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On Thursday, July 10, a federal court jury sitting in Columbus, Ohio returned verdicts totalling $11 million against the City of Zanesville, Ohio, Muskingum County, Ohio, and the East Muskingum Water Authority for illegally denying water service to a predominantly African-American community on the basis of race. Jerry Kennedy, et al. v. City of Zanesville, Ohio, et al. Case No. 2:03-cv-01047, S.D. Ohio. The sixty-seven plaintiffs in the case alleged that the City of Zanesville, Muskingum County, and the East Muskingum Water Authority refused to provide them public water service for over fifty years because they live in the one predominantly African-American neighborhood in a virtually all-white county. Each one of the sixty-seven individual plaintiffs described the hardships caused by living with the continuous practice of discrimination and without water for up to five decades. The jury also awarded $80,000 in damages to Fair Housing Advocates Association, a fair housing agency that assisted the plaintiffs by conducting an investigation and assisting them with their administrative complaints before the Ohio Civil Rights Commission. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission was also a plaintiff in the case, and received a verdict in its favor.

The plaintiffs' legal team was led by Relman & Dane, PLLC. Assisting the Relman & Dane lawyers were attorneys from Jones Day, the Equal Justice Foundation, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, and Cooper & Walinski. The Ohio Civil Rights Commission was represented by the Office of the Ohio Attorney General.

• To read a copy of the Ohio Attorney General's press release following the verdicts, please click here.
• "Racism ruled, jury finds: Mostly black neighborhood near Zanesville denied water because of color; city, county ordered to pay $10.9 million," Columbus Dispatch (July 11, 2008)

Relman & Dane represents the City of Baltimore in its groundbreaking lawsuit under the Fair Housing Act against Wells Fargo Bank. In Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Wells Fargo Bank N.A. et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, the City of Baltimore alleges that Wells Fargo Bank intentionally targeted Baltimore’s minority communities for predatory loans with discriminatory and unfair terms. Wells Fargo's practices have allegedly resulted in extraordinarily high rates of foreclosure in Baltimore’s minority neighborhoods – foreclosures that ultimately cost the City millions of dollars in lost tax revenues, added fire and police costs, court administrative costs, and social programs needed to maintain stable and healthy neighborhoods. This is the first lawsuit in the nation filed by a municipality seeking to recover the costs of foreclosure caused by allegedly racially discriminatory lending practices.

• To download a copy of the complaint, please click here.
• To download a copy of the City of Baltimore's Brief in Opposition to Wells Fargo's Motion to Dismiss, please click here.
• "Baltimore is Suing Bank Over Foreclosure Crisis" The New York Times (January 8, 2008)
• "Suspect foreclosures" The Baltimore Sun (January 10, 2008)

Relman & Dane represents the National Fair Housing Alliance and four of its members in a design and construction accessibility case brought under the Fair Housing Act against A.G. Spanos Companies, the nation's fifth largest developer of apartments. The complaint alleges that, since the early 1990s, Defendants engaged in a continuing pattern and practice of designing and building housing that is inaccessible to people with disabilities.

• "Housing alliance says lawsuit against Spanos sends message" The Stockton Record (June 22, 2007)

Relman & Dane represents the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) in its lawsuit against NovaStar Financial, Inc., and its mortgage lending subsidiary NovaStar Mortgage, Inc., based upon the companies’ refusal to make mortgage loans secured by properties “on Indian reservations” and for use as “adult residential care facilities, elderly care homes or group homes,” in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The complaint also includes an allegation that the NovaStar companies refused to make loans on row houses in Baltimore, a practice that has a significant disproportionate adverse impact on minorities and those who live in minority communities.

• "Discriminating Lenders, or Just Discrimination?" The Washington Post (May 19, 2007)

Relman & Dane represents Sally Herriot, who wants to remain in her own apartment in a retirement community rather than being transferred to a small double-occupancy hospital-like room in the assisted living unit. The lawsuit seeks to establish that the strong protections of the Fair Housing Act and related civil rights laws apply to senior housing, and that housing choice should not depend on age or disability status.

• "Widow battles her retirement home," San Francisco Chronicle (March 2, 2007)

Relman & Dane is counsel to the Anti-Discrimination Center of Metro New York, Inc., in its recently-filed lawsuit against Westchester County, New York. The complaint alleges that Westchester accepted $45 million from 2000 to 2005 and falsely certified to the federal government that it would use those funds to “affirmatively further” fair housing.

• "Housing Carrot and Sticks," The New York Times (Sunday, February 11, 2007)
• "County Sued Over Lack of Affordable Homes," The New York Times (Sunday, February 4, 2007)

Relman & Dane announces:

• Relman & Dane welcomes Shalini Goel as the 2007-2008 Relman Civil Rights Fellow.

• Relman & Dane welcomes Tom Keary.

• To learn more about our attorneys and their fair housing work, click here.

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