Lassiter v. Resolution Trust Corp.

610 So. 2d 531, 1992 WL 355044
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedDecember 4, 1992
Docket91-685
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 610 So. 2d 531 (Lassiter v. Resolution Trust Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lassiter v. Resolution Trust Corp., 610 So. 2d 531, 1992 WL 355044 (Fla. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

610 So.2d 531 (1992)

M.E. LASSITER and Donna Marie Lassiter, his wife, Appellants,
v.
RESOLUTION TRUST CORPORATION, etc., et al., Appellee.

No. 91-685.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fifth District.

December 4, 1992.
Rehearing Denied January 11, 1993.

*533 Sam Baxter Bardwell, Titusville, for appellants.

Catherine Gouze, Tampa, and Ann S. Duross, Colleen B. Bombardier, Edward J. O'Meara, Jaclyn C. Taner, and Sheila Kraft Budoff, Washington, DC, for appellee Resolution Trust Corp.

W. SHARP, Judge.

The Lassiters appeal from a final summary judgment of mortgage foreclosure in favor of the Resolution Trust Corporation as conservator for Florida Federal Savings. They argue that the summary judgment was improper because the RTC failed to negate their affirmative defenses of fraud, failure of consideration and setoff. The RTC contends that the Lassiters' defenses are barred by the D'Oench[1] doctrine, 12 U.S.C. § 1823(e) and the federal holder in due course doctrine. We disagree that D'Oench and 12 U.S.C. § 1823(e) bar consideration of the Lassiters' defenses, and while the federal holder in due course doctrine might bar consideration of these defenses, this issue was not raised below and the record does not conclusively establish that it applies here. Accordingly, we reverse the summary judgment and remand for further proceedings.

This case arose when the Lassiters decided to consolidate several small loans from Northeast Mortgage Corporation and one loan from Old Stone Credit Corporation. The Lassiters borrowed the necessary funds to pay off these loans from Florida Federal and executed a mortgage on their home to secure the note. Florida Federal directed its closing agent, Atlantic Title and Escrow Company, to pay off the loan from Old Stone and the loans from Northeast. The Old Stone loan was paid off but Northeast cashed the check and absconded with the funds. Unbeknown to the Lassiters, Northeast had sold its loans to individual investors.

Ultimately, the private investors contacted the Lassiters and for several months, the Lassiters paid both the Florida Federal mortgage and made payment to the private investors. Eventually, the Lassiters stopped making any payments. Florida Federal then filed this action to foreclose its mortgage. The RTC was later substituted for Florida Federal as the party plaintiff.

The RTC contends that the Lassiters' defenses are barred under federal common law first established in D'Oench, Duhme & Co. v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., 315 U.S. 447, 62 S.Ct. 676, 86 L.Ed. 956 (1942). In that case, D'Oench sold bonds to an Illinois bank and later defaulted on those bonds. D'Oench executed a note to the bank which allowed the bank to carry *534 the bonds on its records and not show them as past due. The receipt for the note contained the statement "[t]his note is given with the understanding that it will not be called for payment. All interest payments to be repaid." After the bank was taken over by the F.D.I.C., the F.D.I.C. sued D'Oench to recover on the note. D'Oench defended on the basis that the parties never intended for the note to be repaid and that the note was given without any consideration. The district court held that the F.D.I.C. was the holder of the note in good faith and for value and that D'Oench was estopped from asserting lack of consideration as a defense.

On appeal, the Supreme Court declared that a federal policy existed to protect the F.D.I.C. against misrepresentations as to the assets and liabilities in the portfolios of the banks which it insured or to which it made loans. Thus, as a matter of federal common law, D'Oench could not rely upon the agreement, which was not reflected in the bank's records, to defeat recovery by the F.D.I.C. The Court further held that fraudulent intent was not necessary. It said, "The test is whether the note was designed to deceive the creditors or the public authority or would tend to have that effect. It would be sufficient in this type of case that the maker lent himself to a scheme or arrangement whereby the banking authority on which respondent relied in insuring the bank was or was likely to be misled." 315 U.S. at 460, 62 S.Ct. at 681.

While the D'Oench doctrine protects federal regulators from secret, unrecorded, or unclear agreements, it does not protect those agencies from bilateral obligations which are evident on the face of the documents at issue. Baumann v. Savers Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n, 934 F.2d 1506, 1517 (11th Cir.1991), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1936, 118 L.Ed.2d 543 (1992); Howell v. Continental Credit Corp., 655 F.2d 743 (7th Cir.1981).

Application of D'Oench in such circumstances would not further the purposes of the doctrine. Bank examiners cannot be misled by documents that evidence the true obligations of the parties. Although appropriate, documentation cannot inform examiners of whether or not an institution will breach its agreements, such documentation does inform examiners of the extent of the institution's obligations, and therefore puts examiners on notice of the riskiness of an obligation and the amount of potential liability should the agreement be breached. Examiners are fully aware that any agreement could be breached, and the likelihood of this occurring must be taken into account in an evaluation of an institution's assets and liabilities. Thus, the protections provided to the deposit insurance fund by the D'Oench doctrine would not be furthered by allowing financial institutions to breach valid agreements or to carry them out in bad faith.

Baumann, 934 F.2d at 1517. See also Federal Savings & Loan Insurance Corp. v. Gordy, 928 F.2d 1558, 1563 (11th Cir.1991); Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. v. McCullough, 911 F.2d 593, 600 (11th Cir.1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 2235, 114 L.Ed.2d 477 (1991). Under this standard, the borrower must be able to point to documents that clearly manifest the bilateral nature of the parties' rights and obligations. Id.

In the cases cited by the RTC, the agreements relied upon by the borrowers were not found in the bank's records nor did they clearly establish the bank's obligations. See Baumann v. Savers Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n (testimony regarding oral representations of bank that it was a partner with borrower in shopping center project, that it would alter the interest payment schedule and fund litigation, none of which was contained in written loan documents, prohibited by D'Oench doctrine); Savers Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n. v. Amberley Huntsville, Ltd., 934 F.2d 1201

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