The following video link takes you to a video of Oral Arguments that were heard in a case in the 5th District Court of Appeals in Volusia County, Florida. The Oral Argument was handled by former judge and respected attorney Dominic Salfi who practices in Central Florida and whose website can be found here. He’s certainly a powerful advocate with more than 40 year’s of experience that attorney and consumers should consider retaining whenever they need powerful support on their cases.
Pay attention to the substance of the arguments and the questions asked by the Appellate Court judges. Note and understand their growing concern and rising awareness of the substantive problems with foreclosure cases in general. The most critical lesson we all need to take from this is the need first to always have a court reporter whenever contested matters are to be heard. Second as we are increasingly aware that the vast majority of evidence presented by these foreclosure mills lacks the proper evidentiary basis to support its admissability for Final Judgment purposes, make sure to make your objections to their evidence early and often.
Raise issues of standing and the veracity/authenticity of evidence initially at Motion to Dismiss and continue to raise and preserve these issues when you can ethically do so. Even if you are denied at Motion to Dismiss, keep in mind that you are building an appellate record.
BAC Funding which addresses the impropriety of Summary Judgments in foreclosure was just released when this case was argued, but BAC, along with all of the other cases cited on this blog and elsewhere, provide us with the roadmap and framework to make our proper evidentiary objections. Remember, it’s not the trial court’s job to object to evidence submitted, it’s up to every one of us to make our objections of record and file and preserve these objections.
The video takes a minute or two to load, but it’s well worth your effort to take the time and listen to it in its entirety. Unfortunately, this court denied the argument and affirmed the grant of summary judgment. While that was certainly not good news in this particular case, the questions of the judges are very valuable to us all.
Video link: Futrell vs HSBC