GSAA Home Equity Trust 2006-2 ex rel. LL Funds LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

200 F. Supp. 3d 912, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103991, 2016 WL 4197579
CourtDistrict Court, D. South Dakota
DecidedAugust 8, 2016
Docket4:14-CV-04166-RAL
StatusPublished

This text of 200 F. Supp. 3d 912 (GSAA Home Equity Trust 2006-2 ex rel. LL Funds LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. South Dakota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
GSAA Home Equity Trust 2006-2 ex rel. LL Funds LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 200 F. Supp. 3d 912, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103991, 2016 WL 4197579 (D.S.D. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING MOTIONS TO DISMISS CONTRACT CLAIMS

ROBERTO A. LANGE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff GSAA Home Equity Trust 2006-2 (the Trust) is a residential mortgage-backed securities trust for which Defendant Wells Fargo, N.A. (Wells Fargo) was the Master Servicer and Defendant Saxon Mortgage Services, Inc. (Saxon) was the Servicer. LL Funds LLC (LL Funds), a Certificateholder in the Trust, filed suit in this Court on behalf of the Trust asserting breach, of contract and tort claims against both Defendants and a claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968, against Wells Fargo. Doc. 1. In a previous Opinion and Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motions to Dismiss, this Court dismissed LL Funds’ tort and RICO claims but declined to dismiss its contract claims. Doc. 44; GSAA Home Equity Tr. 2006-2 ex rel. LL Funds LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank. N.A., 133 F.Supp.3d 1203 (D.S.D.2015). Because there remained unanswered questions about LL Funds’ standing to sue the Defendants on behalf of the Trust, this Court granted LL Funds leave to amend its complaint to establish standing and allowed it to file a supplemental brief should it chose to do so. Doc. 44. LL Funds on behalf of the Trust filed an amended complaint, Doc. 45, and supplemental briefs, Docs. 46, 52, and Defendants both filed supplemental briefs in response, Docs. 49, 50. For the reasons explained below, LL Funds has standing to sue and can sue Saxon directly.

I. Facts

The Trust was established in January 2006 by a Master Servicing and Trust Agreement (MSTA). Doc. 45 at ¶¶ 1-2. The parties to the MSTA were GS Mortgage Securities Corporation ' as Depositor; Deutsche Bank National Trust Company (Deutsche) as Trustee and Custodian; and Wells" Fargo as Master Servicer. Doc. 45 at ¶ 2. As the Master Servicer, Wells Fargo had a duty under the MSTA to “monitor the performance of the Servicer' under the related Servicing Agreements” and to “use its reasonable good faith efforts to cause the Servicer to duly and punctually perform their duties and obligations thereunder.” Doc. 27-2 at 30; Doc. 45 at ¶ 21.

Section 12.07 of the MSTA contains a “no-action clause” requiring Certificate-holders to satisfy several requirements before bringing suit:

No Certificateholder shall have any right by virtue or by availing itself of any provisions of this Agreement to institute any suit, action or proceeding in equity or at law upon or under or with respect to this Agreement, unless such Holder previously shall have given to the Trustee a written notice of an Event of Default and of the continuance thereof, as herein provided, and unless the Holders of Certificates evidencing not less than 25% of the Voting Rights evidenced by the Certificates shall also have made written request to the Trustee to institute such action, suit or proceeding in its own name as Trustee hereunder and shall have offered to the Trustee such reasonable indemnity as it may require against the costs, expenses, and liabilities to be incurred therein or thereby, and the Trustee, for 60 days after its receipt of such notice, [916]*916request and offer of indemnity shall have neglected or refused to institute any such action, suit or proceeding; it being understood and intended, and being expressly covenanted by each Cer-tificateholder with every other Certifi-cateholder and the Trustee, that no one or more Holders of Certificates, shall have any right in any manner whatever by virtue or by availing itself or themselves of any provisions of this Agreement to affect, disturb or prejudice the rights of.the Holders of any other of the Certificates, or to obtain or seek to obtain priority over or preference to any other such Holder or to enforce any right under this Agreement, except in the manner herein provided and for the common benefit of all Certificate-holders. For the protection and enforcement of the provisions of this Section 12.07, each and every Certificateholder and the Trustee shall be entitled to such relief as can be given either at law or in equity.

Doc. 27-2 at 53. New York law governs the MSTA. Doc. 27-2 at 51.

Saxon agreed to be the Servicer for the loans in the Trust by entering into a Flow Servicing Rights Purchase and Servicing Agreement (Servicing Agreement) with Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company in December 2005. Doc. 45 at ¶ 5; Doc. 27-1 at 46. Saxon had a duty under the Servicing Agreement to ensure that its mortgage servicing practices conformed with those of prudent mortgage lending institutions which service similar mortgage loans. Doc. 45 at ¶ 20; Doc. 30-1 at 7, 22, 24. Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company eventually assigned its rights under the Servicing Agreement to GS Mortgage Securities Corporation (Step 1 Assignment), Doc. 51-1, who in turn assigned these rights to Deutsche as Trustee (Step 2 Assignment), Doc. 51-2.

LL Funds owns and holds certificates issued under the MSTA evidencing 25% or greater of the voting rights of the Trust. Doc. 45 at ¶¶ 3, 10. In March 2014, after Saxon no longer was servicing loans in the Trust, LL Funds sent a letter to Deutsche requesting it to sue Saxon and “any other parties under the MSTA ... while Saxon was a Servicer” for, among other things, breach of contract and negligence. Doc. 45 at ¶ 3; Doc. 45-1 at 1. LL Funds explained in the letter that it was making a written request under § 12.07 of the MSTA for Deutsche to institute an action in its own name as Trastee. Doc. 45 at ¶ 3; Doc. 45-1 at 1-2. LL Funds further explained that it had not given a separate notice of an Event of Default under § 12.07 because Saxon was no longer the Servicer for the Trust and could not remedy the conduct in question. Doc. 45 at ¶ 3; Doc. 45-1 at 2. To the extent that a separate notice of an Event of Default was necessary, however, LL Funds asked Deutsche to consider the letter as providing such notice. Doc. 45-1 at 2.

After Deutsche allowed more than sixty days to pass without bringing suit, LL Funds filed its complaint on behalf of the Trust against Saxon and Wells Fargo. Doc. 1 at ¶ 3. Saxon and Wells Fargo moved to dismiss, arguing among other things that LL Funds lacked standing to sue. According to Saxon and Wells Fargo, LL Funds’ claims were derivative.1 To have standing to bring a derivative suit, however, a plaintiff must be a shareholder, or in this case a certificateholder, at the time of the wrong alleged. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23.1(b)(1); N.Y. Bus. Corp. Law § 626(b); Kaliski v. Bacot (In re Bank of N.Y. Deriv[917]*917ative Litig.), 320 F.3d 291, 297 (2d Cir.2003) (explaining that under both Rule 23.1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and New York Business Corporation Law § 626(b), a plaintiff must have owned stock at the time of the transaction, complained of to have standing to bring a shareholder derivative action); Fed. Hous. Fin. Agency v. WMC Mortg., LLC, No. 13 Civ. 584(AKH), 2013 WL 5996530, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. June 12, 2013) (applying Rule 23.1 to derivative suit by certificateholders in mortgage-backed securities trusts); SC Note Acquisitions, LLC v. Wells Fargo Bank.

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Bluebook (online)
200 F. Supp. 3d 912, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103991, 2016 WL 4197579, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gsaa-home-equity-trust-2006-2-ex-rel-ll-funds-llc-v-wells-fargo-bank-sdd-2016.