July 19, 2013

A Key West (Monroe County), Florida Circuit Judge yesterday dismissed what was a second foreclosure attempt by Bank of New York as the claimed “trustee” of a securitized mortgage loan trust. The original filing had been dismissed because BONY failed to comply with discovery and failed to comply with the Court’s Pretrial Order. Jeff Barnes, Esq. represents the homeowner and argued the matter in Key West yesterday.

The prior dismissal Order, which was entered in 2010, conditioned any refiling of the case on “complete” compliance with the homeowner’s discovery and the prior Court Orders. Three years later, in April of 2013, BONY refiled the case through a different law Firm, which failed to satisfy the prior dismissal order as to the discovery; failed to produce documents which it claimed, in its filed “Response” to the discovery, that it produced; and asserted objections to the discovery, which were not permitted by the prior dismissal order. The  Court found, on the record, that the conduct of BONY was “outrageous”, and that although the case may be refiled, BONY must produce every document which it has responsive to the homeowner’s discovery, without objection.

Separately, and in what is believed to be a first in the nation, an Oregon jury has found in favor of the homeowner and against JPMorgan Chase in a suit for damages arising out of the “you have to go into default to be considered for a loan mod” scam which we have previously discussed on this website. When the homeowner applied for a loan modification, JPM told the homeowner that he had to stop making payments first and go into default, which he did. He made seven payments, with JPM thereafter asserting that he did not qualify for a loan mod and foreclosed. The jury awarded damages to the homeowner, who is represented by Oregon counsel Terry Scannell, Esq.

JPM claimed that there was “nothing in writing” and that “nothing was promised”. Apparently the jury was not fooled.

This result needs to be published throughout the country. Finally, a jury has seen through the shameless and illegal conduct of JPMorgan Chase in conning homeowners across the nation into placing themselves into default as an alleged precondition of being considered for a loan mod, and then foreclosing anyway. High time this scam has finally (a) made it way to a jury, and (b) that the jury was not fooled by the scam.

The matter is available online at www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2013/07/jury finds against JPMorgan ch.html.

Thanks to Becca Niday, our Oregon client for whom we recently won the “MERS is not the beneficiary” issue in the Supreme Court of Oregon, for bringing this monumental result to our attention.

Jeff Barnes, Esq., www.ForeclosureDefenseNationwide.com