WASHINGTON—United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia Leonie M. Brinkema on Friday appointed DiCello Levitt’s Founding Partner Adam Levitt, Ben Crump of Ben Crump Law PLLC, and Hassan Zavareei of Tycko & Zavareei LLP as Plaintiffs’ Interim Co-Lead Counsel in a lawsuit against Navy Federal Credit Union, one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders. The Judge’s order also consolidated all of the pending class action lawsuits against Federal Credit Union alleging systemic discrimination against Black and Brown mortgage applicants.
According to one of the lawsuits—Oliver, et al. v. Navy Federal Credit Union (No. 1:23-cv-01731-LMB-WEF)—originally filed in December 2023 by DiCello Levitt LLP, Ben Crump Law PLLC, and Liles Parker PLLC, Navy Federal Credit Union engaged in discriminatory lending practices that damaged thousands of Black and Brown borrowers nationwide. The lawsuit—which is in part based on a recent CNN investigation—alleges a striking disparity between mortgage approval rates of White borrowers, versus Black and Brown applicants. The other pending lawsuits center on similar allegations.
“Navy Federal denied Black and Brown mortgage applicants the fulfillment of the American Dream by systematically discriminating against minority borrowers. Even among applicants showing similar variables relating to income and debt-to-income ratio, Black applicants were more than twice as likely to be denied a home loan as White applicants. Consolidating and appointing leadership over these lawsuits is a crucial step toward delivering justice for thousands of mortgage applicants from minority backgrounds,” Adam Levitt said.
Navy Federal Credit Union among the fifty largest mortgage lenders in the United States shows the largest disparity between home loan approvals for White and Black or Brown borrowers.
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