This city of Baltimore versus Wells Fargo law suit is a mistake and a waste of time. For one thing the people who were taken advantage of were not bereft of brains. Why did the well qualified African American borrowers allow themselves to be steered into the worst possible financial decisions for themselves? Individuals have a responsibility to shop around, ask the right questions and inoculate themselves against potential scams. The city cannot become the white knight on a horse to defend the rights of its fiscally foolish citizens who embrace financial debacles tantalized by sweet talk or traps. This suit will cost taxpayers a mint. Tattling Wells Fargo employees may not talk when faced with the nitty gritty of depositions. Discovery will be long drawn out and and victory if and when it comes will be too little too late. The only people who will benefit from the city's misplaced gallantry will be the plaintiffs lawyers who are licking their chops right now hoping for a bonanza.

@Anonymous

Are you really suggesting that the systematic and racially biased fraud (allegedly) committed by Wells Fargo is OK because the victims "fell for it" ?

Also, your writing is atrocious... were you playing with your thesaurus today ? I think it's rather that you use a lot of colorful wording in order to cover up the moronic points you are making... you are just trying to put lipstick on the pig of an argument you make there. Try again, and try to make sense next time.

Thankfully, most folks are smart enough to ignore blatant internet trolls such of yourself :) Go away.

Your editorial is not well researched. This case and its outcome are very important. The Court's reversal blunts employer obeisance to diversity, engendered by fear of backlash from disgruntled minorities, when it comes at the expense of the majority's own right to a fair appraisal for advancement at the work place.

Also this is a blow for the Sonia Sotomayor enthusiasts. If this were the only case Judge Sotomayor decided that the Supreme Court reversed then it can be set aside as a trivial distraction. In actual fact the Supreme Court has reviewed a total of six cases thus far from Sotomayor's Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and has reversed her decisions in four of these cases, including in the case of Ricci versus Destefano.

While you would argue six cases compose too small a sample to pass judgment on her judicial temperament or legal knowledge I would argue it is telling that a majority of the colleagues with whom she would be sitting, if approved for the Supreme Court, have disagreed with her legal reasoning in two thirds of the cases that came before them from her bench. She has been walloped too many times to ignore the wallops.

Dave T,
There has been a stampede to buy things on the part of consumers even if they couldn't afford them. Don't consumers bear some responsibility for what happened to them? Should they be absolved? There will always be cheats and hucksters and many come in the form of corporations. My argument is not to absolve Wells Fargo. It is merely to say that the city is chasing a rainbow. This city has no money for so many important projects or so it says. It is one thing to shed tears for these victims but another to prove in court they were deliberately taken to the cleaners. Defense attorneys will grill these victims to show their own culpability in the matter and these attorneys will not be dismissed as trolls by the courts. The case will be a long and arduous battle with dubious results at best. This is just my opinion. If you believe the city should go forward say so without all the personal attacks. I am sure you have strong intellectual points to favor your way of thinking.

[I'm enjoying the back and forth, but if I could make one request, it would be nice when you post comments if you could include some kind of username so readers can keep track of who's saying what. Thanks, //AAG]

Seems to me there is a good case that Wells Fargo is the victim here.

Leftists and "civil rights" advocates kept whining that banks would not lend to people who were poor risks, so Wells Fargo came up with a way to be able to make such loans and still make enough money to stay in business.

Now that it turns out that borrowers can't or won't repay the loans--and the banks were right about the risks in the first place--the leftist agitators who caused the problem need to find scapegoats and are attacking the banks who did what those same leftist agitators wanted.

The banks have been damned if hey do and damned if they don't, and the Sun seems to be acting as the mouthpiece of their critics instead of providing balanced coverage of the news.

First, Wells Fargo is accused of redlining. Perhaps they wanted to stay away from high risk loans? Now it predatory lending practices. Perhaps they were "encouraged" to do so by the Fed's policies? No one forced the folks receiving the loans to sign the documents. It was incumbent upon those receiving the loan to review the term & conditions. Many chose the sub-prime because they didn't have to provide proof of income for that type of loan. Ever wonder why? The ARM was simply a bad way to go during historic low flat interest rates. So now it's Wells Fargo’s fault? Only in the eyes of conspiracy theory advocates. And as we all know, conspiracy theory is the opiate of idiots...........

The redlining complaints and most of the other similar characterizations imply a "normal" RE market which clearly did not apply.

In the truism that "you can't cheat an honest man"... the culpability of the borrowers does exist; their professed ignorance is just not a valid excuse.

"Hey Martha, this fellow down at the bank says they'll lend us $300,000 on this old mess of a house... lets get it while the getting is good"

"Hey John, I don't care if the price is too much and I don't care what is in all that fine print... lets get this loan while we can".

Where there excesses? I have no doubt. Both ways.

Of the 143 of Wells Fargo loans that forclosed in Baltimore, 73 were from A-As. A majority listed job loss or medical reasons for defaulting, not that the interest got too high.

Many of you are either unaware of the IQ bell curve (not the racist book) or you just don't give a damn. Close to half of the population, maybe more since the schools have been dumbing down for many years, just isn't smart enough to understand a contract. They also don't understand what they're being told so they don't even know what questions to ask- so they hope the guy is being honest with them (a sure sign of stupidity if you think a republican is honest). So everyone is blaming people for being dumb? What good Christians you are- not!