
Brown
BALTIMORE - A property management company says the Maryland attorney general has taken up a baseless cause against it and has gone to federal court to stop it.
Baltimore-based Bay Management Group sued state Attorney General Anthony Brown on June 23 over a recent subpoena Brown issued to the company. Also named as a defendant is the AG's Civil Rights Division, which wants to probe Bay Management's tenant-screening practices.
"Here, the OAG improperly, unlawfully and maliciously issued the subpoena as part of a fishing expedition, without possessing any actual evidence of a civil rights violation committed by BMG, as part of an effort to 'find' some wrongdoing by BMG to use as leverage against it," the suit says.
"The OAG's true purpose for issuing the subpoena was not to investigate legitimate claims of housing discrimination, but instead to use its unlimited and unchecked investigatory powers, in direct and blatant violation of BMG's due process rights, to coerce BMG into change its legal business practices to conform to Defendants' political and policy preferences."
BMG manages over 7,00 rental units and found itself targeted by AG Brown in a Dec. 2 subpoena. It asked for documents involving tenant-screening, applications, rental listing, housing advertisements, marketing materials, business practices and correspondence with every tenant application in the past three years.
BMG says it has never received notice of any potential violations of housing discrimination laws and that it has complied with all federal, state and local laws. It also says it would take hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars to produce the estimate 100,000 responsive documents.
Brown is using a 2023 law giving his office the power to investigate "any conduct that constitutes a civil rights violation."
The subpoena to BMG was issued to pursue his policy preferences and political initiatives, the company says. BMG says it was stonewalled when its lawyers asked the AG for justification of the subpoena.
Brown's office says it is concerned about BMG's use of criminal background checks when screening tenants. BMG denies that it used the phrase "clean criminal background check" in the tenant requirements of some rental listings.
Two rental listings, one published by apartments.com "that was clearly not published by BMG" and another from more than three years ago were brought up.
Brown's office then said it had received complaints that triggered the investigation.
"When asked about these newly mentioned mysterious 'complaints,' the OAG outright refused BMG's request to provide any information or even provide a brief explanation as to the nature of the 'complaints' or when they were submitted to the OAG," the suit says.
Jeffrey Lichtenstein of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg represents the plaintiff. The suit seeks an order stating BMG does not have to respond to the subpoena and that the AG's investigative law is unconstitutional, plus more than $75,000.