County of Cook v. HSBC North America Holdings Inc.

136 F. Supp. 3d 952, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133239, 2015 WL 5768575
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedSeptember 30, 2015
Docket14-cv-2031
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 136 F. Supp. 3d 952 (County of Cook v. HSBC North America Holdings Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
County of Cook v. HSBC North America Holdings Inc., 136 F. Supp. 3d 952, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133239, 2015 WL 5768575 (N.D. Ill. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

JOHN Z. LEE, United States District Judge

Cook County has filed a claim under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-19, against Defendants HSBC North America Holdings, Inc., and its various subsidiaries and affiliates. The County alleges that Defendants discriminatorily targeted minority homeowners in Cook County for predatory subprime mortgage loans, which resulted in thousands of housing foreclosures. According to the County, these foreclosures in turn caused a decline in tax revenue, an erosion of the County’s tax base, harm to the County’s ability to provide services to its residents, and general urban blight. Defendants move to dismiss the County’s Amended Complaint, arguing that it lacks constitutional and statutory standing to maintain this claim. Defendants also contend that the FHA claim is barred by the statute of limitations and, alternatively, fails to state a claim. For the following reasons, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is denied.

I. Factual Background1

Cook County brings claims of intentional discrimination, disparate impact, and disparate treatment under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) against Defendants. The gist of the County’s claim is that Defendants targeted minority borrowers for their subprime mortgage products, designed those loans to fail, and, consequently, caused thousands of foreclosures in Cook County resulting in widespread economic and noneconomic harm. In so doing, at least according to the County, Defendants engaged in' discriminatory lending practices and implemented facially-neutral practices that had a racial disparate impact. The County’s Amended Complaint contains a slew of allegations describing the subprime mortgage lending crisis in general and Defendants’ lending practices in particular. The Court will attempt to summarize them below.

Predatory lending was rampant in the subprime mortgage industry between 2003 and 2007. See generally Ám. Compl. ¶¶ 8-9, 47-58. During this time, African-American and Latino borrowers were more likely to pay higher prices for mortgage loans than Caucasian borrowers. See id. ¶50. Data collected pursuant to. the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (“HMDA”) and analyzed by the Federal Reserve confirms this disparity. See id. ¶ 51.

The Federal Reserve analysis shows that on average African-American borrowers were 3.1 times more likely than nonmi-nority borrowers to receive a higher-rate home loan; Latino borrowers were 1.9 times more likely. See id. ¶ 52. Other statistics show similar patterns: African-Americans were 37.5 percent more likely to receive a higher-priced conventional home-purchase loan, and 28.3 percent [957]*957more likely to receive a higher-priced refinance loan. See id. ¶¶ 53-54. A U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development study-found that, in neighborhoods where at least 80% of the population was African-American, borrowers were 2.2 times more likely to refinance with a sub-prime lender. See id. ¶ 55.

Cook County alleges that Defendants intentionally targeted and marketed to borrowers in predominantly minority areas in the County in order to grow their sub-prime mortgage lending business. See id. ¶¶ 41-46. Defendants used sophisticated algorithmic modeling to target minority borrowers as well as software programs to process credit bureau information in an effort to identify consumers best suited to receive, and respond to subprime mortgage marketing'materials. See id. ¶¶ 76,78, 80-87. The targeting marketing strategy un-dergirded a general strategy of “upselling” to minority borrowers. See id. ¶ 79.

When selling these loan products to minority borrowers, Defendants engaged in discretionary pricing practices that resulted in higher costs of borrowing for minority borrowers. See id. ¶¶ 100-105. In fact, even after controlling for credit risk, minority borrowers were substantially more likely to pay higher charges on the loan products Defendants offered as compared to similarly situated nonminority borrowers. See id. ¶¶ 109,112-13. Furthermore, Defendants ineentivized their employees to override or circumvent underwriting criteria to steer otherwise qualified minority borrowers to higher cost loans than those provided to similarly situated nonmiority borrowers and to approve otherwise unqualified minority borrowers for high cost loans. See id. ¶ 131.

In addition, the County alleges that, even after the financial crisis, Defendants continued to engage in these practices by continuing to impose and enforce the discriminatory pricing terms and servicing the predatory- loans in a discriminatory manner for financial gain. See generally id. ¶¶ 259-281;’ These ongoing predatory and discriminatory mortgage lending and servicing practices effectively diluted or, in some cases, eliminated the equity the borrowers had in their homes, thereby placing them in greater risk of delinquency, default and eventual foreclosure. See id. ¶¶ 282, 284-85.

The large volume of defaults in the affected communities lowered home values, decreased county tax revenues, and resulted in vacant or abandoned properties that forced the County to provide additional services in these communities at increased costs.' See id. ¶ 285. In fact, based upon academic literature, the County estimates that each foreclosure resulted in up ■ to $34,000 in community wide damages. See id. ¶ 307. -

II. Legal Standards

A. Rule 12(b)(1) and Subject Matter Jurisdiction

A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) tests the jurisdictional sufficiency of the complaint. “When ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the district court must accept as true all well-pleaded factual allegations, and draw reasonable inferences in- favor of the plaintiff.” Ezekiel v. Michel, 66 F.3d 894, 897 (7th Cir.1995). But “[t]he district court may properly look beyond the jurisdictional allegations of the complaint and view whatever evidence has been submitted on the issue to determine whether in fact subject matter jurisdiction exists.” Capitol Leasing Co. v. F.D.I.C., 999 F.2d 188, 191 (7th Cir.1993) (quoting Grafon Corp. v. Hausermann, 602 F.2d 781, 783 (7th Cir,1979)). “[I]f the complaint is formally sufficient but the contention is that there is in fact no subject [958]*958matter jurisdiction, the movant may use affidavits and other material to support the motion.” United Phosphorus, Ltd. v. Angus Chem. Co., 322 F.3d 942, 946 (7th Cir.2003), overruled on other, grounds by Minn-Chem, Inc. v. Agrium, Inc., 683 F.3d 845 (7th Cir.2012). “The burden of proof on a 12(b)(1) issue is on the party asserting jurisdiction.” Id.

B. Rule 12(b)(6) and Failure to State a Claim

To survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the complaint must “state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662

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136 F. Supp. 3d 952, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133239, 2015 WL 5768575, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/county-of-cook-v-hsbc-north-america-holdings-inc-ilnd-2015.