Annapolis settles class-action housing discrimination case

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The city of Annapolis last week reached a tentative deal to settle two housing discrimination lawsuits with more than 1,400 plaintiffs.

In the settlement, the city agreed to pay $15 million to the plaintiffs in a five-year-old class-action lawsuit and to the estate of a deceased resident in a separate but related case.

Filed in May 2021, the class-action suit alleged that the city and its housing authority discriminated against Black residents by failing to inspect public housing units, where 90% of residents are Black. The case was one of several that followed a revelation that the city didn’t require the housing authority to obtain rental property licenses or to face inspections. The plaintiffs said they were exposed to lead, mold and pest infestations.

Annapolis initially blamed the federal government and filed a third-party complaint against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to remedy the conditions. The city is the only defendant in the class-action case.

“The settlement is a first step on our path to ensuring improved housing conditions for our residents, and I’m proud of the City’s work on that front,” Annapolis Mayor Jared Littmann stated in a joint news release Friday with one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Joseph Donahue, representing the plaintiffs via The Donahue Law Firm in Annapolis, said, “We believe this settlement vindicates the civil rights of our clients and all residents of public housing to receive equal protection under the law.”

The city aggressively defended the lawsuit until Littmann was elected last year.

When Littmann took office in December, he fired Annapolis City Attorney D. Michael Lyles, who had been in the position for six years. Toward the end of his tenure, Lyles had filed a motion to decertify the class and a motion for summary judgment.

Those motions came as a surprise, attorney Peter Holland told The Daily Record in December, because the city had not opposed the certification of the class earlier in the case, and because it was resurfacing arguments that a judge had rejected a year earlier.

Lyles was also accused of citing cases that did not exist or did not stand for the principle for which he cited them; he denied the accusation, claiming he checked every case.

When Lyles was replaced, the city immediately moved to send the case to mediation and dropped the motions.

Annapolis agreed to pay $10 million, with an excess insurance carrier paying $5 million. The parties haven’t yet finalized the terms of the settlement, and it will have to be approved by a federal judge.