LATEST NEWS

On June 1, 2009, Relman & Dane, on behalf of the City of Baltimore, filed a First Amended Complaint in Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Wells Fargo Bank N.A. et al.  The First Amended Complaint includes evidence and testimony from former Wells Fargo employees describing how Wells Fargo targeted African-American communities in Baltimore for predatory loans with discriminatory and unfair terms.  The First Amended Complaint also includes declarations from Baltimore residents living near vacant Wells Fargo foreclosures that describe the state of these properties and the conditions that contribute to injury to the City by increasing the costs incurred by City departments and decreasing the City’s property tax revenues.   

To download a copy of the First Amended Complaint, please click here.

On March 25, 2009, United States District Court Judge Helen Berrigan ruled that St. Bernard Parish – a virtually all-white community located adjacent to New Orleans – violated the Fair Housing Act and must rescind a building moratorium on multi-family construction.  After hearing testimony and reviewing evidence during a two day trial, the Court found that the Parish’s intent in “enacting and continuing the moratorium is and was racially discriminatory,” and has an unjustified discriminatory effect on African Americans. 

The Court concluded that the 2008 multi-family moratorium violated both the Fair Housing Act and a Consent Order that the Parish had entered into to settle an earlier challenge to several restrictive ordinances passed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including a nearly identical multi-family moratorium in 2005, and a “blood relative” ordinance that the Parish enacted in 2006.  The blood relative ordinance restricted the rental of single-family residences in St. Bernard Parish to those related by blood to the owner of the property.  The challenge to those ordinances was resolved, and the blood relative ordinance was rescinded, after the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center filed suit in Federal court and a Consent Order was entered on February 27, 2008.  The Court retained jurisdiction over enforcement of the Consent Order for three years from the entry of the Order. 

The challenge to the 2008 multi-family moratorium was brought by the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and a private affordable housing developer, Provident Realty Advisors, which faced the loss of tax credit funding for four affordable housing developments it had planned to build in the Parish.  The Court has reserved the issue of damages and attorneys’ fees for a later hearing.

• To read a copy of Judge Helen Berrigan’s opinion, please click here.
  
  

The Judge sanctioned the Secret Service for the Agency’s willful noncompliance with discovery obligations and court orders, calling the Agency’s “recalcitrance” in producing evidence “the most prominent feature of the record in this action.” She announced that the Secret Service has “made a mockery” of federal discovery rules, court orders, and the evidentiary hearing held on this matter.

• To read a copy of Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson's opinion, please click here.
• "Secret Service Sanctioned in Race Bias Suit," The Washington Post (December 19, 2008)
• "Penalty for Secret Service at Trial," The New York Times (December 19, 2008)

On Thursday, July 10, a federal court jury sitting in Columbus, Ohio returned verdicts totaling $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)
• "For a Recently Plumbed Neighborhood, Validation in a Verdict," The New York Times (August 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 announces:

• Relman & Dane is currently seeking a Full-Time Office Manager. Please click here for details regarding the position and how to apply. 

• Relman & Dane welcomes Katherine Gillespie. 

• Relman & Dane welcomes Brook Hopkins as the 2008-2009 Relman Civil Rights Fellow.

• Relman & Dane welcomes Megan Moran-Gates.

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

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