Nationwide Mutual Insurance v. Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc.

523 S.E.2d 217, 259 Va. 8, 2000 Va. LEXIS 1
CourtSupreme Court of Virginia
DecidedJanuary 14, 2000
DocketRecord No. 990733
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 523 S.E.2d 217 (Nationwide Mutual Insurance v. Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nationwide Mutual Insurance v. Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc., 523 S.E.2d 217, 259 Va. 8, 2000 Va. LEXIS 1 (Va. 2000).

Opinions

CHIEF JUSTICE CARRICO

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Virginia Fair Housing Law, Code §§ 36-96.1 through -96.23, makes it “unlawful for any person or other entity ... to discriminate against any person in making available [a residential real estate-related] transaction, or in the terms or conditions of such a transaction, . . . because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, elderliness, familial status, or handicap.” Code § 36-96.4(A). A residential real estate-related transaction means, inter alia, “[t]he . . . insuring ... of residential real property.” Code § 36-96.4(B)(2).

In an amended motion for judgment filed March 21, 1997, Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Inc. (HOME), a fair housing organization, sought damages from Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company (collectively, Nationwide) for discriminatory practices allegedly employed by Nationwide in the provision of homeowners insurance to African-Americans in the Richmond area. A jury awarded HOME a verdict of $500,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000,000 in punitive [12]*12damages. The trial court entered judgment on the verdict, and we awarded Nationwide this appeal.

The Parties

HOME is a nonprofit Virginia corporation formed in 1971 with the mission of promoting fair housing in Central Virginia, including the Richmond metropolitan area. In carrying out its mission, HOME’S first priority is counseling, education is second, and advocacy, which includes litigation, is third. HOME counsels clients about their housing needs or problems. HOME trains the housing industry “to make sure [its members] don’t violate the fair housing laws” and also educates “housing consumers about what their rights . . . and . . . responsibilities are.” HOME resorts to litigation if counseling and education “are not enough to ensure equal access.”

Nationwide writes insurance. It states on brief that it “has long been one of the leading providers of homeowners’ insurance in the Richmond metropolitan area, [insuring] thousands of houses throughout the city and the surrounding suburbs.”

The Nature of the Controversy

HOME charged in its amended motion for judgment that “Nationwide has, for many years, intentionally pursued a strategy whereby the company avoids providing insurance in African-American neighborhoods” and “has followed an express policy of not targeting urban areas, containing significant minority populations, for the marketing of homeowners policies.” In its grounds of defense, Nationwide denied HOME’S allegations.

HOME submitted the following evidence concerning the discriminatory practices allegedly employed by Nationwide.

Marketing Activities

In the late 1980s, Nationwide was “in a position of stagnánt market share growth, and if [it] did not make some significant change, [it] would begin losing [its] market share.” Accordingly, in 1990, Nationwide developed a “Marketing Strategy” for the Richmond area which stated that “after reviewing household growth, median income, median home value, 13+ years of schooling, and median age,” the nearby counties of Henrico, Hanover, and Chesterfield “were identified as grow fast areas” and as “targeted counties.” The City of Richmond was mentioned in the strategy only tangentially; it was not included as a targeted market.

[13]*13The strategy identified eleven zip codes in the three counties as representing “the profile of Nationwide’s select risk market.” However, 23227, a Henrico zip code bordering the northern edge of the City of Richmond, was singled out for this comment:

We have no data to support identification of emerging ethnic or minority groups. However, of our targeted counties, only one zip code was discovered to have greater than the statewide average for minority groups — this was zip code 23227 (Henrico).

Following development of the marketing strategy, Nationwide implemented a marketing tool known as “MicroVision,” which “is produced on a zip code basis [and] characterizes zip codes by particular lifestyle categories. . . . [T]hese lifestyle segments purport to describe various homogeneous populations ... by their race, by the kinds of things they read, ... by their income.”1 The segments were assigned designations with such names as “Lap of Luxury,” “Established Wealth,” “Metro Minority Families,” “Struggling Minority Mix,” and “Difficult Times.” The segments were then placed into one of five marketing groups: “Affluent”; “Mainstream”; “Mature”; “Country Living”; and “Remaining Diverse.” The first four groups were considered desirable markets. The fifth, “Remaining Diverse,” was considered undesirable. MicroVision placed every predominantly minority neighborhood of the City of Richmond, i.e., those with minority population of 50% or more, in the “Remaining Diverse” group.

Nationwide’s marketing activities also included the production of a “Local Area Market Plan” (LAMP), which divided a given geographic area into zip codes and ranked them as “Best in State,” “Best in Market,” “Next Best in Market,” and “Remaining.” The first three zip codes were considered desirable markets. The fourth, “Remaining,” was considered undesirable. Like MicroVision, LAMP placed every predominantly minority neighborhood of the City of Richmond in the “Remaining” group.

Further, Nationwide performed a “geographic realignment” to “identify where [it wanted its] markets to be, and which populations [it wanted] to target.” Among the “natural geographic boundaries” to be considered in “planning the ideal geographic market” were [14]*14“cultural or ethnic areas.” In Nationwide memoranda dated March 25, 1996, and April 3, 1996, recommending realignment of marketing districts in Central Virginia, the population of the City of Richmond was not included in any marketing district, although rural jurisdictions with smaller populations were included.2

Finally, HOME highlights Nationwide’s treatment of zip code 23227 in Henrico County. This was one of the eleven zip codes identified by Nationwide in its 1990 Marketing Strategy as representing the profile of its select risk market. HOME says that “[ejach of the 11 areas was overwhelmingly white, but. . . 23227 . . . had a minority percentage in excess of the state average,” and Nationwide over the years has consistently ignored “this one zip code, while devoting extra attention to the other 10.” The differential treatment consisted of excluding 23227 from Nationwide’s targeted zip codes and placing it in the undesirable “Remaining” category in every LAMP and Micro Vision listing.

Location of Agents

An expert witness called by HOME testified that Nationwide followed “a consistent pattern ... of placing [its] agents in the target markets.” Nationwide encouraged existing agents to move their offices, or to change their focus, from a non-targeted to a targeted area and, if they refused, the company would “ultimately [remove their] binding authority if necessary.” Without binding authority, an agent cannot deliver a policy to a customer “until it’s gone through the whole underwriting process.” While Nationwide had four agency offices in predominantly minority areas of the City of Richmond in 1990, it had none at the time of trial.

HOME again highlights Nationwide’s treatment of zip code 23227.

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Bluebook (online)
523 S.E.2d 217, 259 Va. 8, 2000 Va. LEXIS 1, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nationwide-mutual-insurance-v-housing-opportunities-made-equal-inc-va-2000.