After replacing top lawyer, Annapolis moves class-action housing lawsuit to mediation

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The City of Annapolis has moved a class-action lawsuit over racial discrimination in public housing to mediation, just days after Mayor Jared Littmann replaced the city’s top lawyer.

Littmann, who took office earlier this month, said on the campaign trail that he wanted to settle the four-and-a-half-year-old case. He last week replaced D. Michael Lyles, who had served for six years as city attorney.

In one of his final acts as city attorney, Lyles in late November filed a motion to decertify the class and a motion for summary judgment.

Peter Holland, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said both motions came as a surprise: The class was approved without opposition nearly three years ago, with the city bringing arguments that a judge rejected about a year later.

“We are really encouraged that the city — under its new leadership, its new mayor and the new leadership in its office of law — (are) finally willing to sit down and negotiate in good faith,” Holland told The Daily Record on Monday.

Lyles was fired, effective immediately, one day after the plaintiffs alleged that the motion to decertify was filled with fake and inaccurate citations. Assistant City Attorney Kerry Berger is leading the city’s law office in an acting capacity.

The city filed a stipulation Friday in both the class-action case — which has about 1,500 members — and a similar one brought on behalf of the estate of one former resident, agreeing to withdraw motions for summary judgment and the motion to decertify the class.

The parties jointly asked that the cases be referred back to U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Austin for mediation, “in an effort to resolve the remaining issues without further litigation.”

Mitchelle Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Littmann, declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Last week, she declined to respond to the allegation that the city used fake citations.

The lawsuit, filed in May 2021, claims that the City of Annapolis 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 exempted the housing authority from rental property licensing and inspection requirements.

The plaintiffs said they were exposed to lead, mold and pest infestations, among other things. They alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act and other federal civil rights laws.

The city 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 class-action case followed a similar one that had 52 plaintiffs. The earlier case reached a $1.8 million settlement, with the city and the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis each paying half. The city is the only defendant in the class-action case.

The parties attempted mediation in March, but it proved unsuccessful.

Holland said the decertification motion came as a surprise because the city had never opposed the motion to certify, which was filed in September 2022. U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake approved the class in February 2023.

Holland added that he considered the city’s November motion for summary judgment to be “frivolous” because it raised an argument that Blake rejected as a “nonstarter” in February 2024.

He declined to say more about the motion that appeared to include “hallucinated” or inaccurate citations generated by artificial intelligence, noting that the motion was withdrawn and that Lyles is no longer working on the case. Lyles denied the allegation last week, saying he reviewed the filing and checked the citations.

The plaintiffs are also represented by P. Joseph Donahue of Annapolis and Scott Borison of Baltimore.