Bank of America Corp. v. Miami (15-1111)

argument 15-1111

Bank of America Corp. v. Miami

Supreme Court of the United States 59 min 5 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the central legal question about city standing under the Fair Housing Act?

John G. Roberts 0:00

We'll hear argument first this morning in case fifteen. Eleven uh Eleven eleven. Bank of America Corporation versus the City of Miami. in the consolidated case. Mr. Cottio?

William A. Isaacson 0:14

Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may please the Court. The question in this case is whether cities can sue under one of our nation's most important laws, the Fair Housing Act. Our answer to that question is yes sometimes, and I mean three things by that. First, the answer can't be yes always, because that would eviscerate two key doctrines of this court proximate cause and zone of interest. Second, the answer can't be no never. because cities can identify concrete harms that fall within the zone of interest, such as discrete expenditures to combat a particular defendant's racial misconduct. And third, this lawsuit fails both zone of interest and proximate cause because the injury it seeks to remedy is unrelated to the Act's purposes, and because that injury is several steps removed from any alleged acts of petitioners.

William A. Isaacson 1:00

If I could start with zone of interests, this court in Lexmark.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1:03

Could you before you do that, Mr. Catchell, could you please tell us you you said yes cities can sue under the FHA, but not in this not on in this scenario. Can you tell us What Under what circumstances could a city sue?

William A. Isaacson 1:25

Absolutely, Justice Ginsburg. So we want we our position is to preserve existing law exactly where it is, and existing law identifies two places where cities can sue. One is a Havens like situation in which a city like the NGO in Havens is combating discrete instances of discrimination by a defendant and outlaying things, so testers or something. So if you took the allegations in this complaint and uh in in and made them out to be the banks were engaged in some sort of discriminatory loans, and the city had to had to basically expend funds to test that out, to enforce its housing statutes. That looks very much like the one-to-one relationship that was at issue in Havens, both for zone of interest and for proximate cause.

William A. Isaacson 2:09

I am sorry,

Elena Kagan 2:10

in Havens the testers were not city employees. in havens they were private organisational employees whose job it was to do this So why are you attributing the testers work to the city directly? Mm-hmm.

William A. Isaacson 2:24

Because Justice Otamayer in that case, and this is paragraph F of the complaint, it's appendix page twenty in Havens, the complaint asks for the city's expenditures to combat uh to it it identifies specific things, including testers and other you know, other enforcements.

Elena Kagan 2:43

like here, with lost revenues, with Um lost tax base, which the Court cited as well. Here there are direct expenditures in terms of increased monitoring. of the area by police and other services. Are it those City expenditures?

William A. Isaacson 3:04

So those uh th that's not Havens, uh Justice Otemeyer with respect. I think that's Gladstone. But our position is that to the extent the city can I plead a complaint that looks like Gladstone, and this gets back to Justice Ginsburg's question, the second bucket in which the city can assert an injury is just like Gladstone in which there's a segregation claim. that is being advanced. There was that racial steering that realtors were literally steering African Americans out of the village. That is an anti discrimination harm to the village itself. And so for zone of interest purposes, Gladstone doesn't talk about proximate cause at all, but for zone of interest purposes, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

William A. Isaacson 3:44

That is the city has identified

Elena Kagan 3:46

You're thinking that if banks are forcing people out of a neighborhood that that is not discrimination?

William A. Isaacson 3:52

Oh no, I'm saying your Your Honor, I'm saying that to the extent that that is segregation interest, absolutely it is, and that's what Gladstone recognizes. Here's what it doesn't recognize, though. It doesn't recognize something like this complaint, which is not that the city is pleading an anti discrimination interest. Rather, they are borrowing someone else's anti discrimination interests, namely the Discriminatory loans that happen. So look, our position is the direct victims can obviously sue for that, but so too can the Justice Department and HUD, because that's what Congress empowered them to do, to have a version of Parren's patriarch standing.