...after suing them a few years ago for not lending to minorities.

-----------------------

A federal judge suggested Monday that he might restrict the scope of a first-of-its kind lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore against mortgage giant Wells Fargo Bank N.A.

The city accuses Wells Fargo of engaging in illegal “reverse redlining” — targeting black neighborhoods for bad loans that resulted in mass foreclosures. The resulting drain on city services cost tens of millions of dollars, the lawsuit alleges.

Lawyers for Wells Fargo filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in September, arguing that the city lacked standing to file the complaint. Baltimore was the first municipality to sue a lender in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. Similar lawsuits were later filed in Cleveland and Birmingham, Ala., but those complaints have been dismissed by federal judges.

During a hearing Monday on the motion to dismiss, U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz described the condition of Baltimore’s impoverished, predominantly black neighborhoods as “shocking, disturbing, despicable.” But he suggested it was implausible to hold Wells Fargo responsible for “the deterioration of the inner city.”

Baltimore has an estimated 30,000 vacant properties, but attorneys for the city have found about 150 homes that were vacant as a result of foreclosures by Wells Fargo. Motz said he would consider limiting the damages sought by the city to the costs of dealing with those properties.

“The general damages, I have problems with,” Motz said. “If in fact the case needs to be cut down, I’ll cut it down.”

Motz did not indicate when he would rule on the motion.

Race card + blame game = recipe for perpetual urban misery.

***

It’s damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Reader D. e-mails: “What’s funny about this is, Baltimore sued Wells for not making more loans to minorities a few years back. When the housing bubble burst, the lawsuit was dismissed and Wells basically had the last laugh. Now they want to sue them for this? So it’s basically, we’ll sue you for not lending to minorities or we’ll sue you for not ‘giving’ people houses. By the way, my wife is a Mortgage Loan Consultant for Wells in Delaware. However, our state requires lawyers be involved in all real estate transactions. Therefore, no one in Delaware can scream ‘predatory lending’ because the lawyers would end up in court, not the mortgage companies.”