Showing 12 posts in Supreme Court of the United States.

Supreme Court Watch: Cities CAN Sue Banks for Predatory Lending

Over the last ten years, cities like Miami, Florida have experienced a decrease in property tax revenues, an increase in demand for police, fire and other municipal services, and an increase in foreclosures and vacancies, particularly in minority neighborhoods. In what appears to be a response to this environment, the City sued Bank of America and Wells Fargo for violations of the Fair Housing Act, claiming they intentionally issued riskier mortgages on less favorable terms to African-American and Latino customers. According to the City, this discriminatory conduct caused higher foreclosure rates and vacancies among minority borrowers, which in turn lowered property values, diminished property-tax revenues and increased the demand for municipal services to remedy the blight that foreclosures and vacancies generate. More ›

Does the FDCPA Apply to Debt Buyers? U.S. Supreme Court Will Soon Decide

On April 18, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument on the issue of whether the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ("FDCPA") extends beyond traditional "debt collectors" to those entities that purchase debts from the original lender after a consumer account is in default, commonly known as "debt buyers." The case, Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc., No. 16-349, on appeal from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, touches upon the original purpose of the FDCPA in eliminating abusive debt collection practices by debt collectors. The key inquiry for the Court then was to determine whether the Congressional intent behind the Act was indeed to regulate all groups of entities in the debt collection marketplace or, in fact, more limited in scope to just those companies that collect directly or indirectly on behalf of another entity. More ›