Stanford C. Stoddard is plowing on in his battle to obtain deposit insurance for a proposed Michigan bank.
The former Michigan National Corp. chief executive said he will appeal a Nov. 25 ruling by a federal court in Michigan that threw out his lawsuit against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. for denying insurance to the proposed Bank of Michigan.
"We're not going to take it lying down," Mr. Stoddard said.
Besides an appeal to the Michigan federal court, he said he plans to file another suit against the FDIC and its individual directors - this time in federal court in Washington.
In a lawsuit filed in January, Mr. Stoddard and other Bank of Michigan organizers charged the FDIC with discrimination.
U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara said last month that he did not have jurisdiction to rule on Mr. Stoddard's claims against FDIC Chairman Ricki Helfer and board members Andrew Hove and Comptroller Eugene A. Ludwig; former board member Jonathan Fiechter; and Simona Frank, former director of the agency's Chicago regional office.
Further, the judge found no merit in charges that the regulators discriminated against the would-be bank because Mr. Stoddard is a Mormon and two directors of the proposed institution are African-American.
Mr. Stoddard resigned in disgrace from Michigan National in 1984, but he successfully fought off efforts by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to fine and ban him.
Since 1993, his efforts to create a new bank have been stymied by the FDIC, which cites his past as reason; Mr. Stoddard, in turn, claims the agency has a vendetta against him.
