Fair Lending Developments: Wrestling with Causation

摘要

The past year saw the lower courts wrestle with the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Bank of America Corp. v. City of Miami1 that, like the Court's previous ruling in Texas Department of Community Affairs v. inclusive Communities Project, Inc.,2 stressed the importance of properly pleading and proving the causation element in fair lending cases based on an alleged disparate impact rather than on disparate treatment. While the Miami cases remained unresolved on remand to the Eleventh Circuit as of this writing, several decisions were issued in pending cases both inside and outside that circuit that indicated that the Supreme Court's rulings will significantly limit the scope of municipal fair lending litigation.