Day after day, all across this state, judges are granting summary judgment when….
THERE IS NO ADMISSSABLE OR PROPER EVIDENCE AT ALL TO SUPPORT FORECLOSURE
Some well meaning judges are falling into these absurd orders granting extended sale dates but allowing the parties to mediate before the sale.
Most of our judges are good, honest and ethical and their decision to enter summary judgments in these cases is first and foremost representative of the fact that we only recently learned just how widespread and systematic the fraud and abuses are. The second force that compels our judges to push these cases through is immense pressure from the Florida Legislature to “Solve The Foreclosure Crisis”. Ignore the fact that this push comes from special interests who are stuffing cash in the legislator’s pockets and ignore the fact that fraud and other crimes committed by the architects of the crimes are the foundation of this “crisis”, that’s old news. Today, let’s focus on the important point that
Judges Cannot Ignore the Inequity Being Perpetrated in Their Courtrooms in Order to
Churn out Foreclosures
This is a fact that we must continue to scream every time we get in front of our judges. We must remind them and their staff, that they should not feel compelled to be the menservants of the financial services industries who created this mess, and they should not feel compelled to improperly churn through foreclosures because they are being improperly coerced or extorted by the legislative branch of government. This is not just an opinion or an essay by an interested party, THIS IS THE LAW. I will be quoting and developing this more in the coming weeks, but here is the basic case law to get us all started:
By both statutory order and case law, foreclosure proceedings are actions in equity. See Fla. Stat. §702.01 (2009) (providing, in pertinent part, that ” [a]ll mortgages shall be foreclosed in equity.” Bold emphasis added); Swan Landing Development, LLC v. Florida Capital Bank, N.A., 19 So.3d 1068, 1072 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009) (providing that ” [f]oreclosure of a mortgage is an equitable remedy”). See also, Singleton v. Greymar Assocs., 882 So.2d 1004, 1008 (Fla.2004); Smiley v. Manufactured Hous. Assocs. III Ltd. P’ship, 679 So.2d 1229, 1232 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996).
Historically, equitable courts developed to provide a forum of justice for litigants when law courts, which contained rigid principles and restrictive technicalities, were deficient. See Hedges v. Lysek, 84 So. 2d 28, 31 (Fla. 1955). As such, equity courts were created to do justice between the litigants. See e.g. Banks v. Shaw, 144 Fla. 550, 198 So. 341 (1940); Atlantic Nat. Bank of Jacksonville v. Simpson, 136 Fla. 809, 188 So. 636 (1938). Therefore, ” a court of equity is a court of conscience; it should not be shackled by rigid rules of procedure and thereby preclude justice being administered according to good conscience.” Demorizi v. Demorizi, 851 So.2d 243, 246 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), appeal dismissed 851 So. 2d 168 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003) (quoting Wicker v. Board of Public Instruction of Dade County, 106 So.2d 550, 558 (Fla.1958)). Finally, with respect to foreclosures, ” the general rule in Florida is that”¦[the] foreclosure must not be unconscionable or inequitable.” Pezzimenti v. Cirou, 466 So.2d 274, 276 (Fla. 2d DCA 1985).
The bottom line is all officers of the court have an obligation to serve the court and to importantly serve the principle of EQUITY. We must continue to make our judges aware that the short term goal of cramming these improperly documented cases through will result in long-term negative consequences. The treatment of this crisis manifests itself primarily as an erosion of respect for the courts (the flagrant evidentiary and ethical abuses, ignoring laws of the Supreme Court) but succumbing to the outside pressure of the legislative branch who have not properly funded our courts represents a
FUNDAMENTAL THREAT TO THE CORE PRINCIPLES OF OUR ENTIRE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
The assembly-line Plaintiff-friendly foreclosure courts represent a de-facto takeover of our judicial branch by the very Wall Street interests that caused this whole mess in the first place. Every single time a judge grants foreclosure on questionable evidence (it’s all questionable), she confers more power to the shadowy interests that are infecting and choking our country and our entire system of justice. We all have a responsibility to help our judges understand the damage done with every foreclosure and give them the insight and courage to stand up to these improper forces. Don’t just win your motion and leave….and especially don’t lose your motion and leave….remind the judges (and their JA’s) of these issues every time you enter the courthouse…REMEMBER, YOU TOOK AN OATH:
“I do solemnly swear:
I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Florida;
I will maintain the respect due to courts of justice and judicial officers;
I will not counsel or maintain any suit or proceedings which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land;
I will employ for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor, and will never seek to mislead the judge or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law;
I will maintain the confidence and preserve inviolate the secrets of my clients, and will accept no compensation in connection with their business except from them or with their knowledge and approval;
I will abstain from all offensive personality and advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which I am charged;
I will never reject, from any consideration personal to myself, the cause of the defenseless or oppressed, or delay anyone’s cause for lucre or malice.
So help me God.”
The Long-Range Strategic Plan for the Florida Judicial Branch 2009-2015 can be found here;
https://www.flcourts.org/gen_public/stratplan/2009LongRangePlanMain.shtml
MISSION: To protect rights and liberties, uphold and interpret the law, and provide for the peaceful resolution of disputes.
VISION: Justice in Florida will be accessible, fair, effective, responsive, and accountable.
To be accessible the Florida justice system will be convenient, understandable, timely, and affordable to everyone.
To be fair, it will respect the dignity of every person, regardless of race, class, gender or other characteristic, apply the law appropriately to the circumstances of individual cases, and include judges and court staff that reflect the community’s diversity.
To be effective, it will uphold the law and apply rules and procedures consistently and in a timely manner, resolve cases with finality, and provide enforceable decisions.
To be responsive, it will anticipate and respond to the needs of all members of society, and provide a variety of dispute resolution methods.
To be accountable, the Florida justice system will use public resources efficiently and in a way that the public can understand.
As is always the case, you’ve hit the nail right on the head. The reality is, in many courtrooms, a mockery is being made of the justice system. When it comes right down to it, the blame has to be placed at the feet of the individual Judge that is allowing this to happen in their very courtroom. The 24,000 dollar question is why are they allowing this to happen? I have thought long and hard about this and based on personal experience and observations in Court proceedings, I believe a combination of reasons are contributing to what is happening.
First, is the historical fact that the vast majority of homeowners do not fight the foreclosure. They just walk away. With little or no opposition, the plaintiffs and the mill fraudsters have been used to ” having it their way”. They have gotten by for years by manufacturing and filing legally insufficient and even manufactured and fraudulent documents and the Courts just rubberstamped their summary judgment requests without question. This has led to a precedent, an atmosphere per say, in many courtrooms in which the plaintiffs’ and the mill fraudsters’ word being accepted as true, factual, and legally sufficient without challenge. It has also led to the Judges not having to do their homework. I have found that many of the Judges in foreclosure cases seem to know little about the working of the mortgage industry. This is especially true when complex issues such as securitization are involved. There seems to be an attitude, especially when the defendant is pro se, that important issues such as standing, capacity, proper notice, fraud on the Court, legally insufficient assignments, and transfers are raised they can be summarily dismissed as unimportant or irrelevant. The Judges allow the case to proceed with those issues ” deferred to the Appellate Courts”, after a summary judgment is entered against the defendant, if and when the defendant appeals. A mentality of the ” end justifies the means”, the end being getting a summary in favor of the plaintiff, seems to be pervasive in our courtrooms today. Couple those things with the attitude of many Judges that the defendant is simply ” a deadbeat trying to get out of paying their mortgage” and you have a recipe for an abomination of due process and justice with the defendant getting the short end of the stick, out on the street, the fraudsters walking away scot free, and the plaintiff getting the defendant’s home, often without standing to even bring the suit in the first place, and more often than not, based on fraud on the Court.
A foreclosure Court is supposed to be a Court of equity however, as prosecuted in many courtrooms today, it is anything but equity and more often than not, a Court of inequity.
It would be very interesting if a group of dedicated attorneys went back and reviewed closed files, looking for summary judgments that were ordered based on legally insufficient and/or fraudulent documents and then instituted a class action suit or suits based on their findings.
You need to tell the judges’ in Georgia this!!!!