Now our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, exploring legal issues in the news, brought to you by American Arbitration Association. Business disputes are inevitable, resolve faster with the American Arbitration Association, the global leader in alternative dispute resolution for over ninety years. More at a d r dot org. Today, Bloomberg Law hosting Grasso and Greg Store discuss the Supreme Court ruling on whether the City of Miami could sue Wells Fargo
and Bank of America for allegedly discriminatory lending practices. They speak to David Gans, director of the Human Rights, civil Rights, and Citizenship program at the Constitutional Accountability Center, and Matthew Nelson, the partner at the law firm Warner Norcross and Jutt. David, your group is calling this ruling of victory. What did you see in Justice Brier's opinion that you liked well? So, I think this is an extremely important ruling that says
cities can sue told banks accountable for housing discrimination. The Court, in line with what it has said in prior cases, said under the Fair Housing Act, there's a very broad group of people who can get into the courthouse door to sue that includes both those who have been directly
injured as well as others like cities. And the court rested it's it's holding on the fact that in I think four past cases, the court had affirmed a very broad view of who could sue under the Fair Housing Act, and the Court said Congress had ratified that, and so based on that reasoning, the city could sue. So this is a kind of a very important affirmation that cities play a crucial role in vindicating the promise of racial
equality that the Fair Housing Act protects. Matthew, it wasn't a total win for cities, and it's going back to the lower court. So how do you consider this ruling? Well, I think that's the ruling is a win for the civil justice system in that it reaffirms that liability only attaches to the direct consequences of misconduct, which is the principle that our legal system has held to for more
than a century. And the idea here is that the alleged discriminatory lending here has to have directly caused injuries to the City of Miami for the City of Miami to recover damages. So although the court has said that the city of Miami can maintain the lawsuit they've remanded for the lower courses determine whether or not the City
of Miami's injuries are direct and here. If you imagine that, for example, you have a neighbor who has allowed party that keeps you up, resulting and you giving an ineffective presentation to a client that results and lost business, that results in decreased revenue for you and layoffs of your employees. You see that at the end of that change, you wouldn't want to be able to have someone say, I consume my neighbor for the party that kept me up and here too. That's the question now that the court
has to consider. Is the City of Miami too far detached from the alleged discriminatory practices to be able to actually recover damages. That's Matthew Nelson, a partner at Warner Norcross and Judd, and David Gans, director of the Human Rights, civil Rights, and Citizenship Program at the Constitutional Accountability Center, speaking to Bloomberg Law hostun Gresso and Greg Store. You can listen to Bloomberg Law weekdays at one pm Wall
Street Time here on Bloomberg Radio. And that's this morning's Bloomberg lawbrate. You can find more legal news at Bloomberg law dot com and Bloomberg BNA dot com. Attorneys will find exceptional legal research and business development tools there as well. Visit Bloomberg Law dot com and Bloomberg Bienna dot com for more information