Kansas City-based James B. Nutter & Co., one of the nation’s largest private mortgage lenders that since its founding in 1951 helped hundreds of thousands of Americans buy their first homes, has announced that it is going out of the home loan business. The news comes as the company enters the third year of a costly legal battle with the U.S. Department of Justice over Nutter’s alleged mishandling of so-called reverse mortgages. The government sued Nutter in September 2020, alleging that the company engaged in fraudulent and deceptive practices in originating the federally backed mortgages. The…