Plaintiffs, residents of an apartment building, applied for a loan with Defendant-lender to convert their apartment building into a cooperative. Defendant rejected their loan application, purportedly because of liens on the property, but admitted to procedural irregularities in the handling of the application. Plaintiffs alleged that Defendant rejected their loan application because many of them were minorities, and Plaintiffs filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3619.

After the District Court ruled against the Defendant-lender on the FHA violation, the Defendant appealed, and the Fifth Circuit reversed on May 31, 1996, in a panel opinion written by Circuit Judge E. Grady Jolly. Simms v. First Gibraltar Bank, 83 F.3d 1546 (5th Cir. 1996). The Fifth Circuit found that the Defendant-lender had provided sufficient nondiscriminatory reasons for rejecting the loan and that the procedural irregularities did not demonstrate that the race of the loan applicants was a substantial factor in the rejection of the application. Circuit Judge Emilio Garza concurred in the appellate panel's judgment without joining Judge Jolly's opinion; Judge Garza did not write separately to explain his decision.

The Fifth Circuit rejected the Plaintiff-Appellants' petition for rehearing on July 16, 1996. Simms v. First Gibraltar Bank, 95 F.3d 56 (5th Cir. 1996).

Andrew Nash - 06/02/2008


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