Chrysler Discriminatory Class-Action Lawsuit - From plaintiff Jerrel Coburn

The Human Story - Jerrell Coburn

The following is Jerrell Coburn’s first-person account of how Chrysler’s alleged redlining has affected individuals. Jerrell is one of the named plaintiffs in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against Chrysler’s financing subsidiary, DaimlerChrysler Services North America, LLC, commonly known as Chrysler Financial Company. For more information, view the complaint or contact Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro for more information.

“I pay my bills on time, I own my own home, so why should I be treated differently regarding credit because of where I live or the color of my skin?”

That is how Jerrell Coburn, a 49-year-old father of three, sees it. Coburn, a 29-year information systems coordinator for the U.S. Postal Service, is angry that Chrysler told him he wasn’t worthy to receive low financing rates, although his creditworthiness was as good as others receiving the same rate.

According to a lawsuit filed on his behalf, Chrysler decided it would deny credit to blacks in Coburn’s Chicago-area neighborhood, regardless of their individual circumstance. In shocking language cited in the complaint, a senior Chrysler official was quoted as saying, “…I don’t buy nigger paper,” referring to financing contracts brought to Chrysler from dealers.

According to Coburn, he thought one of the nation’s largest car companies saw him as a good customer after he bought his first vehicle from the Marquette dealership five years ago. “I bought a Jeep and have never been as much as a day late with a payment,” he noted.

“Last year, Chrysler asked me to come in, telling me that they had great financing available, and that if I was in the market for a new Jeep, now was the time,” Coburn said. “I thought ‘hey, they are rewarding me for being a valued customer for so many years’ – little did I know that I was something very different than a ‘valued customer.’”

According to the lawsuit filed against Chrysler, Coburn and others were refused financing, not because of credit history – Coburn’s scored an impressive 656 on the Empirica scale – but because of the color of their skin, and the address they called home. According to the complaint, Chrysler was engaging in an incredibly noxious form of redlining, based on race.

Redlining, a term associated with the civil-rights battles of the 60’s, is alive and well at Chrysler Financial Company, the suit claims.

To explain why Chrysler wouldn’t finance cars purchased in areas with large minority populations such as Marquette, the same Chrysler official was quoted as saying, “I might buy some niggers [financing contracts] at a suburban store because at least they’re smart enough not to get shot while trying to buy a car in the ghetto,” in the complaint.

That racist attitude perpetuated by senior Chrysler officials caused outrageous discrimination against hard-working customers of the Marquette dealership – customers like Coburn.

“When I went in to look at the new Jeep, I fell into the same trap that nearly every car purchaser falls into – I spent a little more than I wanted and drove home in my new car that day, probably not doing a very good job shopping the competition,” Coburn said. “But, hey, I work hard, and sometimes you do things that feel good, and this was one of them – I bought myself a new car.”

But what didn’t feel good was, despite his good credit, the dealership could not obtain the advertised 2.9 percent APR for Coburn from Chrysler Credit and had to arrange financing through another company at nearly 9 percent interest, dramatically increasing the finance charges for his auto purchase.

“Once it was time to sign all the papers, I asked what happened to the preferred financing. The dealership told me this was the best they could do. I should have walked away, but I was caught up in the excitement of driving away in my new car,” he added.

“Now that I know all the facts, it makes me very, very angry. I pay my bills, and I pay them on time. I own my home and have raised three kids. If Chrysler thinks that they can judge me by the color of my skin or the neighborhood in which I choose to buy my house, well, they have another thing coming.”

“It wasn’t too many years ago that Chrysler came hat-in-hand to the U.S. Government for a bail-out, and we did it – taxpayers just like me. Now, to have them turn around and treat people with such disrespect galls me,” Coburn noted.

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ED NOTE: Information in this document is drawn from the lawsuit filed against Chrysler Financial Company.