Florida’s courts have taken all of us down a very dangerous path. In the rush of madness to CLEAR THE FORECLOSURE DOCKETS! Courts have become complicit in an ongoing and widely systematic pattern of fraud and abuse.
This occurs in foreclosure trial after foreclosure trial where the entire book of evidence, rules of procedure and well established case law is overlooked again and again and again. The most clear and widespread example of this is the absolutely systematic practice of courts admitting photocopies of documents…and even contracts that are not signed…in support of foreclosure….over and over and over again.
In a foreclosure trial, we object over and over when a foreclosure mill attorney introduces a photocopy of a power of attorney or a “pooling and servicing agreement” printed off some website somewhere…but judges just overrule those objections.
It is terrifying to think that in a divorce case a court would allow an unsigned photocopy of an alleged prenuptial agreement into evidence or to think that in a multi million dollar corporate case a court would overrule objections and allow strangers to a closely held corporation to enter agreements into evidence in support of their case over objection when those agreements are not signed….but in the context of foreclosures where no rules and no procedural safeguards need apply, this happens over and over and over again. Because clearly Florida courts have made a very dangerous decision that granting foreclosures is far more important than following the bare basics of the Florida Evidence Code.
This is a dangerous condition of judicial schizophrenia where in one courtroom the entire body of the rules of evidence and procedure are completely ignored (most clearly seen with the systematic willingness to ignore rules of authenticity and hearsay for bank documents) while (*hopefully) in the very next courtroom a judge would surely uphold those rules of evidence. But then we’ve made a policy decision that doing so somehow serves some larger purpose.
Which brings us to the latest trial disaster. Just yesterday, WeidnerLaw had a foreclosure trial showed all those ugly examples of a court refusing to uphold any semblance of respect for the evidence code….photocopy after photocopy accepted over objection. Unsigned trust agreement accepted over objection. Hours worth of hearsay testimony and testimony with zero foundation accepted over objection.
But sadly, that wasn’t the worst of it. A big part of our case rested on the undisputed fact that we deposed the witness whose alleged signature appeared on the endorsement on the back of the note. His testimony was clear….the alleged signature was a forgery.
Did that matter? Apparently not. Incredibly, the Plaintiff did not dispute our evidence in any way. Incredibly the argument of plaintiff’s counsel was,
“Judge just ignore this evidence of forgery/fraud.”
This, dear citizens is just one more example of a very dangerous set of circumstances that has overtaken a vast swatch of your judicial system.
And this, dear citizens is why I continue to fight to raise awareness of this dangerous set of circumstances among the larger community and the legal community in particular.
The most important example of this is our petition that is pending before Florida’s Supreme court.
I have some faint delusional hope that we have some justices on the Florida Supreme Court that recognize the danger of these larger issues….
12 Q There is a signature on that page, and it
13 contains the name “Jeffery P*****” and the title of
14 “President.”
15 Do you see that signature?
16 A I do.
17 Q Is that your signature?
18 A No.
19 Q Is — was any other individual authorized to
20 make your signature on this assignment of mortgage — or
21 excuse me, on this allonge?
22 A No.
23 Q How does that — how can you be sure that that
24 signature is not your signature?
25 A I think I’m pretty familiar with my own
15
1 signature.
2 Q Great.
So there you have it….an endorsement signature that is not in fact the signature of the person it purports to be…otherwise known as a forgery…..
The only breath of potential good news here is the judge did not grant a judgement to the bank….
The judge very much played a straight poker face that could not be read….perhaps what is coming is a very powerful order that delivers a very swift sanction and important message to this bank…
and others.
Perhaps.