Couple Win Racial Bias Case Against Lender : Verdict: Black husband and wife are awarded $150,000 after jury finds mortgage company’s failure to get them a loan discriminatory.

A jury has awarded a black Coto de Caza couple $150,000 after finding that a mortgage company’s failure to get them a loan was racially motivated.

The jury decision in Orange County Superior Court on Wednesday stems from George and Elizabeth Green’s attempt to buy a $460,000 house in Coto de Caza in 1989. The jury, in its 10-2 decision, also awarded the couple attorney fees, which could reach $90,000.

The couple have since bought a more expensive home in the same neighborhood through a private party. The Greens, both registered nurses, said that the mortgage company rebuffed them, even though their combined monthly income was $16,000.

The jury “felt compelled to follow the law,” said the couple’s attorney, Walter Greene of Santa Ana, on Wednesday. “They felt it was discrimination.”

An attorney for Rancho Santa Margarita Mortgage Co. vigorously denied allegations of bigotry, however, and disputed the plaintiffs’ claims that there were no factors in the Greens’ financial condition that should have disqualified them. The company plans to appeal.

“We believe (the jury’s decision) was erroneous,” said Robert Green, the attorney representing Rancho Santa Margarita Mortgage. “There was not evidence of racial discrimination.”

He cited several factors that led to the mortgage company’s refusal to find the couple a loan, among them that the couple’s average monthly income over a period of several years was too low to qualify. The couple also had a tainted credit history more serious “than a late payment or two on a credit card,” he said.

But the couple’s attorney argued that their income and lack of debt was enough to meet qualifications, and he cited other similar, successful attempts by white families to obtain loans.

Although the couple’s credit record showed some late payments, attorney Greene said, they were from at least two years before the couple applied for the loan. He added that he was prepared to call a lending expert to prove that such a factor should have been “insignificant” to the mortgage company.

“They couldn’t sell their defense,” the lawyer said. “There was absolutely no way they could prove (the Greens) were denied because of their financial condition.”

In testimony that the couple’s lawyer said was critical to the case, a white family who subsequently bought the house said that they were able to get a loan even though their monthly income was $6,000 less.

“It was a very, very important fact with the jury,” he said.

The attorney for Rancho Santa Margarita Mortgage, however, called the testimony “smoke and mirrors,” noting that the white family applied through another mortgage company and did not include their credit history, debt or amount of down payment in their testimony.

“There have been findings by the trial judge and the juries twice before that there was no evidence of racial discrimination,” Robert Green said.

In a 1990 trial, the couple won an $80,000 verdict, despite the jury’s finding that racial discrimination was not a factor. But Orange County Superior Judge William F. McDonald threw out the verdict.

McDonald then ordered a new trial that would focus on the lending company’s alleged “professional negligence” rather than racial discrimination, but he later rescinded that order.

The Greens were eventually granted a new trial in county court by the state Court of Appeal.

“The jury found it was racial discrimination this time,” Walter Greene said. “There was no question about it.”