NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 15–1111 and 15–1112
_________________
BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION,
et al., PETITIONERS
15–1111v.
CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
WELLS FARGO & CO., et al.,
PETITIONERS
15–1112v.
CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[May 1, 2017]
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The Fair Housing Act (FHA or Act) forbids
“discriminat[ing] against any person in
the terms, conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a
dwelling, or in the provision of services or facilities in
connection therewith, because of race . . . .” 42
U. S. C. §3604(b).
It further makes it unlawful for
“any person or other entity whose business
includes engaging in residential real estate-related transactions
to discriminate against any person in making available such a
transaction, or in the terms or conditions of such a transaction,
because of race . . . .” §3605(a).
The statute allows any “aggrieved person” to
file a civil action seeking damages for a violation of the statute.
§§3613(a)(1)(A), 3613(c)(1). And it defines an “aggrieved person”
to include “any person who . . . claims to have been
injured by a discriminatory housing practice.” §3602(i).
The City of Miami claims that two banks, Bank of
America and Wells Fargo, intentionally issued riskier mortgages on
less favorable terms to African-American and Latino customers than
they issued to similarly situated white, non-Latino customers, in
violation of §§3604(b) and 3605(a). App. 185–197, 244–245, 350–362,
428. The City, in amended complaints, alleges that these
discriminatory practices have (1) “adversely impacted the racial
composition of the City,” id., at 232, 416; (2) “impaired
the City’s goals to assure racial integration and desegregation,”
ibid.; (3) “frustrate[d] the City’s longstanding and active
interest in promoting fair housing and securing the benefits of an
integrated community,” id., at 232–233, 416–417; and (4)
disproportionately “cause[d] foreclosures and vacancies in minority
communities in Miami,” id., at 229, 413. Those foreclosures
and vacancies have harmed the City by decreasing “the property
value of the foreclosed home as well as the values of other homes
in the neighborhood,” thereby (a) “reduc[ing] property tax revenues
to the City,” id., at 234, 418, and (b) forcing the City to
spend more on “municipal services that it provided and still must
provide to remedy blight and unsafe and dangerous conditions which
exist at properties that were foreclosed as a result of [the
Banks’] illegal lending practices,” id., at 233–234, 417.
The City claims that those practices violate the FHA and that it is
entitled to damages for the listed injuries.
The Banks respond that the complaints do not set
forth a cause of action for two basic reasons. First, they contend
that the City’s claimed harms do not “arguably” fall within the
“zone of interests” that the statute seeks to protect,
Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc.
v. Camp, 397 U. S. 150, 153 (1970) ; hence, the City is
not an “aggrieved person” entitled to sue under the Act, §3602(i).
Second, they say that the complaint fails to draw a
“proximate-cause” connection between the violation claimed and the
harm allegedly suffered. In their view, even if the City proves the
violations it charges, the distance between those violations and
the harms the City claims to have suffered is simply too great to
entitle the City to collect damages.
We hold that the City’s claimed injuries fall
within the zone of interests that the FHA arguably protects. Hence,
the City is an “aggrieved person” able to bring suit under the
statute. We also hold that, to establish proximate cause under the
FHA, a plaintiff must do more than show that its injuries
foreseeably flowed from the alleged statutory violation. The lower
court decided these cases on the theory that foreseeability is all
that the statute requires, so we vacate and remand for further
proceedings.
I
In 2013, the City of Miami brought lawsuits in
federal court against two banks, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
The City’s complaints charge that the Banks discriminatorily
imposed more onerous, and indeed “preda-tory,” conditions on loans
made to minority borrowers than to similarly situated nonminority
borrowers. App. 185–197, 350–362. Those “predatory” practices
included, among others, excessively high interest rates,
unjustified fees, teaser low-rate loans that overstated refinancing
opportunities, large prepayment penalties, and—when default
loomed—unjustified refusals to refinance or modify the loans.
Id., at 225, 402. Due to the discriminatory nature of the
Banks’ practices, default and foreclosure rates among minority
borrowers were higher than among otherwise similar white borrowers
and were concentrated in minority neighborhoods. Id., at
225–232, 408–415. Higher foreclosure rates lowered property values
and diminished property-tax revenue. Id., at 234, 418.
Higher foreclosure rates—especially when accompanied by
vacancies—also increased demand for municipal services, such as
police, fire, and building and code enforcement services, all
needed “to remedy blight and unsafe and dangerous conditions” that
the foreclosures and vacancies generate. Id., at 238–240,
421–423. The complaints describe statistical analyses that trace
the City’s financial losses to the Banks’ discriminatory practices.
Id., at 235–237; 419–420.
The District Court dismissed the complaints on
the grounds that (1) the harms alleged, being economic and not
discriminatory, fell outside the zone of interests the FHA
protects; (2) the complaints fail to show a sufficient causal
connection between the City’s injuries and the Banks’
discriminatory conduct; and (3) the complaints fail to allege
unlawful activity occurring within the Act’s 2-year statute of
limitations. The City then filed amended complaints (the complaints
now before us) and sought reconsideration. The District Court held
that the amended complaints could solve only the statute of
limitations problem. It consequently declined to reconsider the
dismissals.
The Court of Appeals reversed the District
Court. 800 F. 3d 1262 (CA11 2015); 801 F. 3d 1258 (CA11
2015). It held that the City’s injuries fall within the “zone of
interests,” Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control
Components, Inc., 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at
10), that the FHA protects. 800 F. 3d, at 1274–1275, 1277
(relying on Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins.
Co., 409 U. S. 205 (1972) ; Gladstone, Realtors v.
Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91 (1979) ; and
Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U. S. 363
(1982) ); 801 F. 3d, at 1266–1267 (similar). It added that the
complaints adequately allege proximate cause. 800 F. 3d, at
1278; 801 F. 3d, at 1267. And it remanded the cases while
ordering the District Court to accept the City’s complaints as
amended. 800 F. 3d, at 1286; 801 F. 3d, at 1267.
The Banks filed petitions for certiorari, asking
us to decide whether, as the Court of Appeals had in effect held,
the amended complaints satisfied the FHA’s zone-of-interests and
proximate-cause requirements. We agreed to do so.
II
To satisfy the Constitution’s restriction of
this Court’s jurisdiction to “Cases” and “Controversies,”
Art. III, §2, a plaintiff must demonstrate constitutional
standing. To do so, the plaintiff must show an “injury in fact”
that is “fairly traceable” to the defendant’s conduct and “that is
likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.”
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. ___, ___
(2016) (slip op., at 6) (citing Lujan v. Defenders of
Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555 –561 (1992)). This Court has also
referred to a plaintiff’s need to satisfy “prudential” or
“statutory” standing requirements. See Lexmark, 572
U. S., at ___–___, and n. 4 (slip op., at 6–9, and
n. 4). In Lexmark, we said that the label
“ ‘prudential standing’ ” was misleading, for the
requirement at issue is in reality tied to a particular statute.
Ibid. The question is whether the statute grants the
plaintiff the cause of action that he asserts. In answering that
question, we presume that a statute ordinarily provides a cause of
action “only to plaintiffs whose interests fall within the zone of
interests protected by the law invoked.” Id., at ___ (slip
op., at 10) (internal quotation marks omitted). We have added that
“[w]hether a plaintiff comes within ‘the zone of interests’ is an
issue that requires us to determine, using traditional tools of
statutory interpretation, whether a legislatively conferred cause
of action encompasses a particular plaintiff’s claim.” Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 8) (some internal quotation marks
omitted).
Here, we conclude that the City’s claims of
financial injury in their amended complaints—specifically, lost tax
revenue and extra municipal expenses—satisfy the “cause-of-action”
(or “prudential standing”) requirement. To use the language of
Data Processing, the City’s claims of in-jury it suffered as
a result of the statutory violations are, at the least,
“arguably within the zone of interests” that the FHA
protects. 397 U. S., at 153 (emphasis added).
The FHA permits any “aggrieved person” to bring
a housing-discrimination lawsuit. 42 U. S. C. §3613(a).
The statute defines “aggrieved person” as “any person who” either
“claims to have been injured by a discriminatory housing practice”
or believes that such an injury “is about to occur.” §3602(i).
This Court has repeatedly written that the FHA’s
definition of person “aggrieved” reflects a congressional intent to
confer standing broadly. We have said that the definition of
“person aggrieved” in the original version of the FHA, §810(a),
82Stat. 85, “showed ‘a congressional intention to define standing
as broadly as is permitted by Article III of the
Constitution.’ ” Trafficante, supra, at 209
(quoting Hackett v. McGuire Brothers, Inc., 445
F. 2d 442, 446 (CA3 1971)); see Gladstone, supra, at
109 (similar); Havens Realty, supra, at 372, 375–376
(similar); see also Thompson v. North American Stainless,
LP, 562 U. S. 170, 176 (2011) (“Later opinions, we must
acknowledge, reiterate that the term ‘aggrieved’ [in the FHA]
reaches as far as Article III permits”); Bennett v.
Spear, 520 U. S. 154 –166 (1997) (“[Trafficante]
held that standing was expanded to the full extent permitted under
Article III by §810(a) of the Civil Rights Act of 1968”).
Thus, we have held that the Act allows suits by
white tenants claiming that they were deprived benefits from
interracial associations when discriminatory rental practices kept
minorities out of their apartment complex, Trafficante, 409
U. S., at 209–212; a village alleging that it lost tax revenue
and had the racial balance of its community undermined by
racial-steering practices, Gladstone, 441 U. S.,
at 110–111; and a nonprofit organization that spent money to combat
housing discrimination, Havens Realty, 455 U. S., at
379. Contrary to the dissent’s view, those cases did more than
“sugges[t]” that plaintiffs similarly situated to the City have a
cause of action under the FHA. Post, at 5. They held as
much. And the dissent is wrong to say that we characterized those
cases as resting on “ill-considered dictum.” Post, at 4
(quoting Thompson, supra, at 176). The “dictum” we
cast doubt on in Thompson addressed who may sue under Title
VII, the employment discrimination statute, not under the FHA.
Finally, in 1988, when Congress amended the FHA,
it retained without significant change the definition of “person
aggrieved” that this Court had broadly construed. Compare §810(a),
82Stat. 85, with §5(b), 102Stat. 1619–1620 (codified at 42
U. S. C. §3602(i)) (changing “person aggrieved” to
“aggrieved person” and making other minor changes to the
definition). Indeed, Congress “was aware of” our precedent and
“made a considered judgment to retain the relevant statutory text,”
Texas Dept. of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive
Communities Project, Inc., 576 U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip
op., at 13). See H. R. Rep. No. 100–711, p. 23 (1988) (stating
that the “bill adopts as its definition language similar to that
contained in Section 810 of existing law, as modified to reaffirm
the broad holdings of these cases” and discussing Gladstone
and Havens Realty); cf. Lorillard v. Pons, 434
U. S. 575, 580 (1978) (Congress normally adopts our
interpretations of statutes when it reenacts those statute without
change).
The Banks do not deny the broad reach of the
words “aggrieved person” as defined in the FHA. But they do contend
that those words nonetheless set boundaries that fall short of
those the Constitution sets. Brief for Petitioners in
No. 15–1112, p. 12 (Brief for Wells Fargo); Brief for
Petitioners in No. 15–1111, pp. 19–20 (Brief for Bank of
America). The Court’s language in Trafficante,
Gladstone, and Havens Realty, they argue, was
exaggerated and unnecessary to decide the cases then before the
Court. See Brief for Wells Fargo 19–23; Brief for Bank of America
27–33. Moreover, they warn that taking the Court’s words
literally—providing everyone with constitutional standing a cause
of action under the FHA—would produce a legal anomaly. After all,
in Thompson, 562 U. S., at 175–177, we held that the
words “ ‘person claiming to be aggrieved’ ” in Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the employment discrimination
statute, did not stretch that statute’s zone of interest to the
limits of Article III. We reasoned that such an interpretation
would produce farfetched results, for example, a shareholder in a
company could bring a Title VII suit against the company for
discriminatorily firing an employee. Ibid. The Banks say it
would be similarly farfetched if restaurants, plumbers, utility
companies, or any other participant in the local economy could sue
the Banks to recover business they lost when people had to give up
their homes and leave the neighborhood as a result of the Banks’
discriminatory lending practices. Brief for Wells Fargo 18–19;
Brief for Bank of America 22, 24–25. That, they believe, cannot
have been the intent of the Congress that enacted or amended the
FHA.
We need not discuss the Banks’ argument at
length, for even if we assume for argument’s sake that some form of
it is valid, we nonetheless conclude that the City’s financial
injuries fall within the zone of interests that the FHA protects.
Our case law with respect to the FHA drives that conclusion. The
City’s complaints allege that the Banks “intentionally targeted
predatory practices at African-American and Latino neighborhoods
and residents,” App. 225; id., at 409 (similar). That
unlawful conduct led to a “concentration” of “foreclosures and
vacancies” in those neighborhoods. Id., at 226, 229, 410,
413. Those concentrated “foreclosures and vacancies” caused
“stagnation and decline in African-American and Latino
neighborhoods.” Id., at 225, 409. They hindered the City’s
efforts to create integrated, stable neighborhoods. Id., at
186, 351. And, highly relevant here, they reduced prop-erty values,
diminishing the City’s property-tax revenue and increasing demand
for municipal services. Id., at 233–234, 417.
Those claims are similar in kind to the claims
the Village of Bellwood raised in Gladstone. There, the
plaintiff village had alleged that it was “ ‘injured by having
[its] housing market . . . wrongfully and illegally
manipulated to the economic and social detriment of the citizens of
[the] village.’ ” 441 U. S., at 95 (quoting the
complaint; alterations in original). We held that the village could
bring suit. We wrote that the complaint in effect alleged that the
defendant-realtors’ racial steering “affect[ed] the village’s
racial composition,” “reduce[d] the total number of buyers in the
Bellwood housing market,” “precipitate[d] an exodus of white
residents,” and caused “prices [to] be deflected downward.”
Id., at 110. Those circumstances adversely affected the
village by, among other things, producing a “significant
reduction in property values [that] directly injures a municipality
by diminishing its tax base, thus threatening its ability to bear
the costs of local government and to provide services.”
Id., at 110–111 (emphasis added).
The upshot is that the City alleges economic
injuries that arguably fall within the FHA’s zone of interests, as
we have previously interpreted that statute. Principles of stare
decisis compel our adherence to those precedents in this
context. And principles of statutory interpretation require us to
respect Congress’ decision to ratify those precedents when it
reenacted the relevant statutory text. See supra, at 7.
III
The remaining question is one of causation:
Did the Banks’ allegedly discriminatory lending practices
proximately cause the City to lose property-tax revenue and spend
more on municipal services? The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the
answer is “yes” because the City plausibly alleged that its
financial injuries were foreseeable results of the Banks’
misconduct. We conclude that foreseeability alone is not sufficient
to establish proximate cause under the FHA, and therefore vacate
the judgment below.
It is a “ ‘well established principle of
[the common] law that in all cases of loss, we are to attribute it
to the proximate cause, and not to any remote cause.’ ”
Lexmark, 572 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 13). We assume
Congress “is familiar with the common-law rule and does not mean to
displace it sub silentio” in federal causes of action.
Ibid. A claim for damages under the FHA—which is akin to a
“tort action,” Meyer v. Holley, 537 U. S. 280,
285 (2003) —is no exception to this traditional requirement.
“Proximate-cause analysis is controlled by the nature of the
statutory cause of action. The question it presents is whether the
harm alleged has a sufficiently close connection to the conduct the
statute prohibits.” Lexmark, supra, at ___ (slip op.,
at 14).
In these cases, the “conduct the statute
prohibits” consists of intentionally lending to minority borrowers
on worse terms than equally creditworthy nonminority borrowers and
inducing defaults by failing to extend refinancing and loan
modifications to minority borrowers on fair terms. The City alleges
that the Banks’ misconduct led to a disproportionate number of
foreclosures and vacancies in specific Miami neighborhoods. These
foreclosures and vacancies purportedly harmed the City, which lost
property-tax revenue when the value of the properties in those
neighborhoods fell and was forced to spend more on municipal
services in the affected areas.
The Eleventh Circuit concluded that the City
adequately pleaded that the Banks’ misconduct proximately caused
these financial injuries. 800 F. 3d, at 1282. The court held
that in the context of the FHA “the proper standard” for proximate
cause “is based on foreseeability.” Id., at 1279, 1282. The
City, it continued, satisfied that element: Although there are
“several links in the causal chain” between the charged
discriminatory lending practices and the claimed losses, the City
plausibly alleged that “none are unforeseeable.” Id., at
1282.
We conclude that the Eleventh Circuit erred in
holding that foreseeability is sufficient to establish proximate
cause under the FHA. As we have explained, proximate cause
“generally bars suits for alleged harm that is ‘too remote’ from
the defendant’s unlawful conduct.” Lexmark, supra, at
___ (slip op., at 14). In the context of the FHA, foreseeability
alone does not ensure the close connection that proximate cause
requires. The housing market is interconnected with economic and
social life. A violation of the FHA may, therefore, “ ‘be
expected to cause ripples of harm to flow’ ” far beyond the
defendant’s misconduct. Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal.,
Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 534 (1983) .
Nothing in the statute suggests that Congress intended to provide a
remedy wherever those ripples travel. And entertaining suits to
recover damages for any foreseeable result of an FHA violation
would risk “massive and complex damages litigation.” Id., at
545.
Rather, proximate cause under the FHA requires
“some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious
conduct alleged.” Holmes v. Securities Investors
Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258, 268 (1992) . A damages
claim under the statute “is analogous to a number of tort actions
recognized at common law,” Curtis v. Loether, 415
U. S. 189, 195 (1974) , and we have repeatedly applied
directness principles to statutes with “common-law foundations,”
Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451,
457 (2006) . “ ‘The general tendency’ ” in these cases,
“ ‘in regard to damages at least, is not to go beyond the
first step.’ ” Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New
York, 559 U. S. 1, 10 (2010) . What falls within that
“first step” depends in part on the “nature of the statutory cause
of action,” Lexmark, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 14),
and an assessment “ ‘of what is administratively possible and
convenient,’ ” Holmes, supra, at 268.
The parties have asked us to draw the precise
boundaries of proximate cause under the FHA and to determine on
which side of the line the City’s financial injuries fall. We
decline to do so. The Eleventh Circuit grounded its decision on the
theory that proximate cause under the FHA is “based on
foreseeability” alone. 800 F. 3d, at 1282. We therefore lack the
benefit of its judgment on how the contrary principles we have just
stated apply to the FHA. Nor has any other court of appeals weighed
in on the issue. The lower courts should define, in the first
instance, the contours of proximate cause under the FHA and decide
how that standard applies to the City’s claims for lost
property-tax revenue and increased municipal expenses.
IV
The judgments of the Court of Appeals for the
Eleventh Circuit are vacated, and the cases are remanded for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Gorsuch took no part in the
consideration or decision of these cases.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 15–1111 and 15–1112
_________________
BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION,
et al., PETITIONERS
15–1111v.
CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
WELLS FARGO & CO., et al.,
PETITIONERS
15–1112v.
CITY OF MIAMI, FLORIDA
on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[May 1, 2017]
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Kennedy and
Justice Alito join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
These cases arise from lawsuits filed by the
city of Miami alleging that residential mortgage lenders engaged in
discriminatory lending practices in violation of the Fair Housing
Act (FHA). The FHA prohibits “discrimination” against “any person”
because of “race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status,
or national origin” with respect to the “sale or rental” of “a
dwelling.” 42 U. S. C. §3604; accord, §3605(a); §3606.
Miami’s complaints do not allege that any defendant discriminated
against it within the meaning of the FHA. Neither is Miami
attempting to bring a lawsuit on behalf of its residents against
whom petitioners allegedly discriminated. Rather, Miami’s theory is
that, between 2004 and 2012, petitioners’ allegedly discriminatory
mortgage-lending practices led to defaulted loans, which led to
foreclosures, which led to vacant houses, which led to decreased
property values, which led to reduced property taxes and urban
blight. See 800 F. 3d 1262, 1268 (CA11 2015); 801 F. 3d 1258,
1266 (CA11 2015). Miami seeks damages from the lenders for reduced
property tax revenues and for the cost of increased municipal
services—“police, firefighters, building inspectors, debris
collectors, and others”—deployed to attend to the blighted areas.
800 F. 3d, at 1269; 801 F. 3d, at 1263.
The Court today holds that Congress intended to
remedy those kinds of injuries when it enacted the FHA, but leaves
open the question whether Miami sufficiently alleged that the
discriminatory lending practices caused its injuries. For the
reasons explained below, I would hold that Miami’s injuries fall
outside the FHA’s zone of interests. I would also hold that, in any
event, Miami’s alleged injuries are too remote to satisfy the FHA’s
proximate-cause requirement.
I
A plaintiff seeking to bring suit under a
federal statute must show not only that he has standing under
Article III, ante, at 5, but also that his “complaint
fall[s] within the zone of interests protected by the law” he
invokes, Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control
Components, Inc., 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at
7) (internal quotation marks omitted). The zone-of-interests
requirement is “root[ed]” in the “common-law rule” providing that a
plaintiff may “recover under the law of negligence for injuries
caused by violation of a statute” only if “the statute ‘is
interpreted as designed to protect the class of persons in which
the plaintiff is included, against the risk of the type of harm
which has in fact occurred as a result of its violation.’ ”
Id., at ___, n. 5 (slip op., at 11, n. 5) (quoting
W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton
on Law of Torts §36, pp. 229–230 (5th ed. 1984)). We have “made
clear” that “Congress is presumed to legislate against the
background” of that common-law rule. Lexmark, 572
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 10) (internal quotation marks
omitted). We thus apply it “to all statutorily created causes of
action . . . unless it is expressly negated.”
Ibid. (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted).
“Whether a plaintiff comes within the zone of interests is an issue
that requires us to determine, using traditional tools of statutory
interpretation, whether a legislatively conferred cause of action
encompasses a particular plaintiff’s claim.” Id., at ___
(slip op., at 8) (internal quotation marks omitted).
A
Nothing in the text of the FHA suggests that
Congress intended to deviate from the zone-of-interests limitation.
The statute’s private-enforcement mechanism provides that only an
“aggrieved person” may sue, §3613(a)(1)(A), and the statute defines
“aggrieved person” to mean someone who “claims to have been injured
by a discriminatory housing practice” or who believes he “will be
injured by a discriminatory housing practice that is about to
occur,” §§3602(i)(1), (2). That language does not hint—much less
expressly provide—that Congress sought to depart from the
common-law rule.
We have considered similar language in other
statutes and reached the same conclusion. In Thompson v.
North American Stainless, LP, 562 U. S. 170 (2011) ,
for example, we considered Title VII’s private-enforcement
provision, which provides that “ ‘a person claiming to be
aggrieved’ ” may file an employment discrimination charge with
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Id., at 173
(quoting §2000e–5(b)). We unanimously concluded that Congress did
not depart from the zone-of-interests limitation in Title VII by
using that language. Id., at 175–178. And in Lexmark,
we interpreted a provision of the Lanham Act that permitted “any
person who believes that he or she is likely to be damaged by a
defendant’s false advertising” to sue. 572 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 10) (internal quotation marks omitted). Even when faced
with the broader “any person” language, we expressly rejected the
argument that the statute conferred a cause of action upon anyone
claiming an Article III injury in fact. We observed that it was
unlikely that “Congress meant to allow all factually injured
plaintiffs to recover,” and we concluded that the zone-of-interests
test was the “appropriate tool for determining who may invoke the
cause of action” under the statute. Id., at ___, ___ (slip
op., at 10, 11) (internal quotation marks omitted).
To be sure, some language in our older
precedents suggests that the FHA’s zone of interests extends to the
limits of Article III. See Trafficante v. Metropolitan
Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205, 209 (1972) ; Gladstone,
Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U. S. 91, 109
(1979) ; Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455
U. S. 363, 372 (1982) . But we have since described that
language as “ill-considered” dictum leading to “absurd
consequences.” Thompson, 562 U. S., at 176. And we have
observed that the “holdings of those cases are compatible with the
“ ‘zone of interests’ limitation” described in
Thompson. Ibid. That limitation provides that a
plaintiff may not sue when his “interests are so marginally related
to or inconsistent with the purposes implicit in the statute that
it cannot be assumed that Congress intended to permit the suit.”
Id., at 178 (internal quotation marks omitted). It thus
“exclud[es] plaintiffs who might technically be injured in an
Article III sense but whose interests are unrelated to the
statutory prohibitions.” Ibid.
B
In my view, Miami’s asserted injuries are “so
marginally related to or inconsistent with the purposes” of the FHA
that they fall outside the zone of interests. Here, as in any other
case, the text of the FHA defines the zone of interests that the
statute protects. See Lexmark, supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 9). The FHA permits “[a]n aggrieved person” to sue,
§3613(a)(1)(A), if he “claims to have been injured by a
discriminatory housing practice” or believes that he “will
be injured by a discriminatory housing practice that is
about to occur,” §§3602(i)(1), (2) (emphasis added). Specifically,
the FHA makes it unlawful to do any of the following on the basis
of “race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or
national origin”: “refuse to sell or rent . . . a
dwelling,” §3604(a); discriminate in the “terms, conditions, or
privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling, or in the provision of
services or facilities in connection therewith,” §3604(b); “make,
print, or publish . . . any notice, statement, or
advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling
that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination,”
§3604(c); “represent to any person . . . that any
dwelling is not available for inspection, sale, or rental when such
dwelling is in fact so available,” §3604(d); “induce any person to
sell or rent any dwelling by representations regarding the entry or
prospective entry into the neighborhood of a person or persons of”
certain characteristics, §3604(e); or discriminate in the provision
of real estate or brokerage services, §§3605, 3606. The
quintessential “aggrieved person” in cases involving violations of
the FHA is a prospective home buyer or lessee discriminated against
during the home-buying or leasing process. Our cases have also
suggested that the interests of a person who lives in a
neighborhood or apartment complex that remains segregated (or that
risks becoming segregated) as a result of a discriminatory housing
practice may be arguably within the outer limit of the interests
the FHA protects. See Trafficante, supra, at 211
(concluding that one purpose of the FHA was to promote “truly
integrated and balanced living patterns” (internal quotation marks
omitted)).
Miami’s asserted injuries are not arguably
related to the interests the statute protects. Miami asserts that
it received “reduced property tax revenues,” App. 233, 417, and
that it was forced to spend more money on “municipal services that
it provided and still must provide to remedy blight and unsafe and
dangerous conditions,” id., at 417; see also ante, at
2. The city blames these expenditures on the falling property
values and vacant homes that resulted from foreclosures. But
nothing in the text of the FHA suggests that Congress was concerned
about decreased property values, foreclosures, and urban blight,
much less about strains on municipal budgets that might follow.
Miami’s interests are markedly distinct from the
interests this Court confronted in Trafficante,
Gladstone, and Havens. In Trafficante, one
white and one black tenant of an apartment complex sued on the
ground that the complex discriminated against nonwhite rental
applicants. 409 U. S., at 206–208. They argued that this
discrimination deprived them of the social and economic benefits of
living in an integrated community. Id., at 208. In
Gladstone, residents in a village sued based on alleged
discrimination in the home-buying process. 441 U. S., at
93–95. They contended that white home buyers were steered away from
a racially integrated neighborhood and toward an all-white
neighborhood, whereas black home buyers were steered away from the
all-white neighborhood and toward the integrated neighborhood.
Id., at 95. The plaintiffs thus alleged that they were
“denied their right to select housing without regard to race.”
Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The village also
sued, alleging that the FHA violations were affecting its “racial
composition, replacing what is presently an integrated neighborhood
with a segregated one” and that its budget was strained from
resulting lost tax revenues. Id., at 110. Finally, in
Havens, one white and one black plaintiff sued after having
posed as “testers,” for the purpose of “collecting evidence of
unlawful steering practices.” 455 U. S., at 373. According to
their complaint, the owner of an apartment complex had told the
white plaintiff that apartments were available, but had told the
black plaintiff that apartments were not. Id., at 368. The
Court held that the white plaintiff could not sue, because
he had been provided truthful information, but that the black
plaintiff could sue, because the FHA requires truthful
information about housing without regard to race. Id., at
374–375. In all three of these cases, the plaintiffs claimed
injuries based on racial steering and segregation—interests that,
under this Court’s precedents, at least arguably fall within the
zone of interests that the FHA protects.
Miami’s asserted injuries implicate none of
those interests. Miami does not assert that it was injured based on
efforts by the lenders to steer certain residents into one
neighborhood rather than another. Miami does not even assert that
it was injured because its neighborhoods were segregated. Miami
therefore is not, as the majority describes, “similarly situated”
to the plaintiffs in Trafficante, Gladstone, and
Havens. Ante, at 7. Rather, Miami asserts injuries
allegedly resulting from foreclosed-upon and then vacant homes. The
FHA’s zone of interests is not so expansive as to include those
kinds of injuries.
C
The Court today reaches the opposite
conclusion, resting entirely on the brief mention in
Gladstone of the village’s asserted injury of reduced tax
revenues, and on principles of stare decisis. See
ante, at 9. I do not think Gladstone compels the
conclusion the majority reaches. Unlike these cases,
Gladstone involved injuries to interests in “racial balance
and stability,” 441 U. S., at 111, which, our cases have
suggested, arguably fall within the zone of interests protected by
the FHA, see supra, at 6. The fact that the village
plaintiff asserted a budget-related injury in addition to
its racial-steering injury does not mean that a city alleging
only a budget-related injury is authorized to sue. A
budget-related injury might be necessary to establish a
sufficiently concrete and particularized injury for purposes of
Article III, but it is not sufficient to satisfy the FHA’s
zone-of-interests limitation.
Although the Court’s reliance on
Gladstone is misplaced, its opinion today is notable
primarily for what it does not say. First, the Court conspicuously
does not reaffirm the broad language from Trafficante,
Gladstone, and Havens suggesting that Congress
intended to permit any person with Article III standing to sue
under the FHA. The Court of Appeals felt bound by that language,
see 800 F. 3d, at 1277; 801 F. 3d, at 1266, and we
granted review, despite the absence of a circuit conflict, to
decide whether the language survived Thompson and
Lexmark, see Brief for Petitioner in No. 15–1111, p. i
(“By limiting suit to ‘aggrieved person[s],’ did Congress require
that an FHA plaintiff plead more than just Article III
injury-in-fact?”); Brief for Petitioner in No. 15–1112, p. i
(“Whether the term ‘aggrieved’ in the Fair Housing Act imposes a
zone-of-interests requirement more stringent than the
injury-in-fact requirement of Article III”). Today’s opinion avoids
those questions presented and thus cannot be read as retreating
from our more recent precedents on the zone-of-interests
limitation.
Second, the Court does not reject the lenders’
arguments about many other kinds of injuries that fall outside of
the FHA’s zone of interests. We explained in Thompson that
an expansive reading of Title VII’s zone of interests would allow a
shareholder “to sue a company for firing a valuable employee for
racially discriminatory reasons, so long as he could show that the
value of his stock decreased as a consequence.” 562 U. S., at
177. Petitioners similarly argue that, if Miami can sue for
lost tax revenues under the FHA, then “plumbers, utility companies,
or any other participant in the local economy could sue the Banks
to recover business they lost when people had to give up their
homes and leave the neighborhood as a result of the Banks’
discriminatory lending practices.” Ante, at 8 (citing
petitioners’ briefs). The Court today decides that it “need not
discuss” this argument because Gladstone and stare
decisis compel the conclusion that Miami can sue. Ante,
at 8. That conclusion is wrong, but at least it is narrow.
Accordingly, it should not be read to authorize suits by local
businesses alleging the same injuries that Miami alleges here.
II
Although I disagree with its zone-of-interests
holding, I agree with the Court’s conclusions about proximate
cause, as far as they go. The Court correctly holds that
“foreseeability alone is not sufficient to establish proximate
cause under the FHA.” Ante, at 10. Instead, the statute
requires “ ‘some direct relation between the injury asserted
and the injurious conduct alleged.’ ” Ante, at 11
(quoting Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection
Corporation, 503 U. S. 258, 268 (1992) ).
After articulating this test for proximate
cause, the Court remands to the Court of Appeals because it
“decline[s]” to “draw the precise boundaries of proximate cause
under the FHA” or to “determine on which side of the line the
City’s financial injuries fall.” Ante, at 12. But these
cases come to the Court on a motion to dismiss, and the Court of
Appeals has no advantage over us in evaluating the complaint’s
proximate-cause theory. Moreover, the majority opinion leaves
little doubt that neither Miami nor any similarly situated
plaintiff can satisfy the rigorous standard for proximate cause
that the Court adopts and leaves to the Court of Appeals to apply.
See ante, at 11 (“The general tendency in these cases, in
regard to damages at least, is not to go beyond the first step”
(internal quotation marks omitted)).
Miami’s own account of causation shows that the
link between the alleged FHA violation and its asserted injuries is
exceedingly attenuated. According to Miami, the lenders’ injurious
conduct was “target[ing] black and Latino customers in Miami for
predatory loans.” Brief for Respondent in No. 15–1111, p. 4
(internal quotation marks omitted). And according to Miami, the
injuries asserted are its “loss of tax revenues” and its
expenditure of “additional monies on municipal services to address”
the consequences of urban blight. Id., at 6.
As Miami describes it, the chain of causation
between the injurious conduct and its asserted injuries proceeds as
follows: As a result of the lenders’ discriminatory loan practices,
borrowers from predominantly minority neighborhoods were likely to
default on their home loans, leading to foreclosures. Id.,
at 5–6. The foreclosures led to vacant houses. Id., at 6.
The vacant houses, in turn, led to decreased property values for
the surrounding homes. Ibid. Finally, those decreased
property values resulted in homeowners paying lower property taxes
to the city government. Ibid. Also, Miami explains, the
foreclosed-upon, vacant homes eventually led to “vagrancy, criminal
activity, and threats to public health and safety,” which the city
had to address through the expenditures of municipal resources.
Ibid. And all this occurred, according to Miami, between
2004 and 2012. See ibid. The Court of Appeals will not need
to look far to discern other, independent events that might well
have caused the injuries Miami alleges in these cases.
In light of this attenuated chain of causation,
Miami’s asserted injuries are too remote from the injurious conduct
it has alleged. See Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal.,
Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519 , n. 25
(1983). Indeed, any other conclusion would lead to disquieting
consequences. Under Miami’s own theory of causation, its injuries
are one step further removed from the allegedly discriminatory
lending practices than the injuries suffered by the neighboring
homeowners whose houses declined in value. No one suggests that
those homeowners could sue under the FHA, and I think it is clear
that they cannot. Accordingly, I would hold that Miami has failed
to sufficiently plead proximate cause under the FHA.
III
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the
Court of Appeals.
