Arguing against a motion to dismiss, CCL President Robert S. Peck, representing the City of Sacramento, argued that the city's complaint met the Fair Housing Act's proximate cause standard to maintain its lawsuit for damages relating to lost property taxes, remediation expenses, and neutralized fair housing expenditures against banking giant Wells Fargo.

      Peck pointed out that the Supreme Court has instructed courts to focus on a statute's legislative history to determine the contours of the proximate cause requirement. That legislative history demonstrates that Congress was specifically concerned about the impact of discriminatory housing practices on municipal finances. In 1988 amendments, Congress endorsed a 1972 Supreme Court case, Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, in which the court upheld the validity of a municipality's lawsuit for lost property taxes as a direct injury. Peck argued that this legislative history informs the proximate cause analysis and makes the city's injuries integral to the statutory cause of action.

     U.S. District Court Judge Kimberly Mueller took the case under advisement.