NEW YORK, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has dismissed an appeal against Deutsche Bank National Trust Company by plaintiffs who claimed it and its trusts did not own their loans and mortgages.
Circuit judges Amalya Lyle Kearse, Dennis G. Jacobs and Barrington D. Parker Jr. voted in the majority, with Kearse authoring the opinion.
"For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the facts alleged by plaintiffs do not give them standing to pursue the claims they asserted, and we affirm the judgment of dismissal," the June 30 opinion states.
David Rajamin, Edith Gonzalez Larios, Jesus Valdez, Maurice Nunez, Elias Estrada, Irma Estrada, Theresa Doty, Robert Basel and Larry Myron Kegel mortgaged their homes in 2005 or 2006 and borrowed sums ranging from $24,000 to $1,008,000, totaling $3,776,000, according to the opinion.
The complaint challenged the defendants' ownership of the plaintiffs' loans and mortgages; their right to collect and receive payment on the loans; and the right to commence or authorize commencement of foreclosure proceedings where payments have not been made or received.
The plaintiffs claimed the assignments were defective because their mortgage loans were not specifically listed in mortgage loan schedules or other attachments to the assignment agreements.
"The complaint also alleged that assignments by First Franklin to Deutsche Bank of four of plaintiffs' deeds of trust were executed and publicly recorded in 2009 or 2010, after First Franklin had ceased operations and years after the securitization transactions took place," the opinion states.
"Plaintiffs argue that the execution and recordation of these mortgage assignments after the securitization transactions that created the defendant trusts indicate that these mortgages were not included in the mortgage loan pools that were sold to those trusts."
On appeal, the plaintiffs claim the district court erred in dismissing the complaint, arguing that they have a "concrete interest in putting to the test defendants' claims to own [plaintiffs'] mortgages and mortgage documents."
"We conclude that plaintiffs failed to allege injuries sufficient to show constitutional standing to pursue their claims," the opinion states.
The recorded assignments do not support plaintiffs' contention that their loans and mortgages were not owned by defendants, according to the opinion.
"Moreover, plaintiffs have not alleged that the promissory notes were not conveyed to the Trustee in a timely manner," the opinion states. "Section 2.01(b) of the PSAs states that documentation, including each 'original Mortgage Note' and each 'original record ed Mortgage' 'has [been] delivered...to the Custodian.'"
The fact that the plaintiffs mount no viable challenge to the timeliness of the assignment of the promissory notes scuttles their contention that the mortgages were not timely assigned, according to the opinion.
"The apparent 'custody' of plaintiffs' notes by custodians, which the assignment agreements explicitly allow the trustee to use, does not imply that those agreements failed to convey ownership of plaintiffs' obligations to defendants," the opinion states. "We have considered all of plaintiffs' arguments on this appeal and have found them to be without merit. The judgment of the district court is affirmed."
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit case number: 13-1614
From Legal Newsline: Kyla Asbury can be reached at classactions@legalnewsline.com.
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