{"id":1571,"date":"2017-05-12T20:45:47","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T00:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/"},"modified":"2017-05-12T20:45:47","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T00:45:47","slug":"local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Morgan Williams<\/p>\n

In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami<\/em><\/a> strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of how proximate cause is defined under the law.<\/p>\n

In its lawsuit, the City of Miami outlined its allegations that Bank of America and Wells Fargo targeted predatory loans against African American and Latino borrowers and that when the unsustainable loans inevitably collapsed and houses fell into foreclosure, the City incurred added costs in police and code enforcement services and diminished tax revenue stemming from the bad loans.\u00a0 The City argued that the banks practices cause \u201cstagnation and decline in African-American and Latino neighborhoods\u201d and \u201chindered the City\u2019s efforts to create integrated, stable neighborhoods.\u201d\u00a0 The City\u2019s claim highlights the devastating impact of the foreclosure crisis and the harmful reach of discrimination in communities of color.<\/p>\n

The decision reaffirms bedrock Supreme Court fair housing jurisprudence\u2014in Trafficante<\/em><\/a>, Gladstone<\/em><\/a>, and Havens Realty<\/em><\/a>\u2014 interpreting a broad scope of the law for those seeking to redress harm from discriminatory conduct, whether in the form of a tenant being denied the opportunity to live in an integrated community or a city that loses tax revenue from racial steering practices.<\/p>\n

Justice Breyer wrote in his 5-3 majority opinion that the City\u2019s financial injuries including \u201clost tax revenue and extra municipal expenses\u201d fall within the \u201czone of interests\u201d the Fair Housing Act protects, basing his analysis in principles of stare decisis<\/em> and Congressional statutory ratification, and preserving the ability of cities and other indirect victims of discrimination to seek redress in the courts.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Breyer opined that the Court is undeterred in upholding its previous rulings that the Fair Housing Act \u201creflects congressional intent to confer standing\u2026 as broadly as is permitted by Article III of the Constitution.\u201d\u00a0 By reestablishing the broad application of standing under the court\u2019s \u201czone of interest\u201d framework, the decision serves to buttress a central pillar of the law under recent developments in Supreme Court jurisprudence.<\/p>\n

The court left open the question of whether the banks\u2019 misconduct proximately caused the City\u2019s financial injury, remanding that matter to the 11th Circuit which previously only assessed harm on the basis of whether the injury could have foreseeably flown from the discrimination alleged.\u00a0 Justice Breyer noted that \u201cthe housing market is interconnected with economic and social life,\u201d such that a fair housing violation may \u201c\u2018be expected to cause ripples of harm to flow\u2019 far beyond the defendant\u2019s misconduct,\u201d but he reiterated that proximate cause \u201crequires some direct relation between the injury asserted the injurious conduct alleged.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court declined to draw precise boundaries on what constitutes proximate cause under the law, citing a lack of guidance on the question from the lower courts, so now the civil rights advocates and banking industry defense lawyers lined up on either side of this dispute will follow the matter back down to the circuit courts.\u00a0 With little guidance from the Supreme Court apart from the assertion that alleged harm must somehow be more than merely foreseeable, the fight over the reach of the Fair Housing Act lives on in the next phase of this case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Morgan Williams In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-media","category-nfha-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Morgan Williams In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of […]\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Morgan Williams In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"NFHA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-13T00:45:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"electricpulp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"electricpulp\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/\",\"name\":\"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-13T00:45:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c0dd8351358b7b64fa147b1d85c74eff\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg\",\"width\":800,\"height\":600},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/\",\"name\":\"NFHA\",\"description\":\"National Fair Housing Alliance\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c0dd8351358b7b64fa147b1d85c74eff\",\"name\":\"electricpulp\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/author\/electricpulp\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA","description":"By Morgan Williams In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of […]","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA","og_description":"By Morgan Williams In a precedent-setting ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.\u00a0 The decision in Bank of America, et al. v. City of Miami strongly ratified a core principle of the Fair Housing Act while leaving open a central question of […]","og_url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/","og_site_name":"NFHA","article_published_time":"2017-05-13T00:45:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":800,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"electricpulp","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"electricpulp","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/","url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/","name":"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision - NFHA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg","datePublished":"2017-05-13T00:45:47+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c0dd8351358b7b64fa147b1d85c74eff"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/800px-Supreme_Court-1.jpg","width":800,"height":600},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/local-communities-upheld-in-the-fight-for-fair-housing-with-recent-bank-of-america-v-city-of-miami-supreme-court-decision\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Local Communities to Fight for Fair Housing With Recent Bank of America v. City of Miami Decision"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#website","url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/","name":"NFHA","description":"National Fair Housing Alliance","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/#\/schema\/person\/c0dd8351358b7b64fa147b1d85c74eff","name":"electricpulp","sameAs":["https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org"],"url":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/author\/electricpulp\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalfairhousing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}