Siegel v. American Savings & Loan Assn.

210 Cal. App. 3d 953, 258 Cal. Rptr. 746, 1989 Cal. App. LEXIS 511
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedMay 23, 1989
DocketA040504
StatusPublished
Cited by27 cases

This text of 210 Cal. App. 3d 953 (Siegel v. American Savings & Loan Assn.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Siegel v. American Savings & Loan Assn., 210 Cal. App. 3d 953, 258 Cal. Rptr. 746, 1989 Cal. App. LEXIS 511 (Cal. Ct. App. 1989).

Opinion

Opinion

BENSON, J.

Appellants are the named plaintiffs in a class action. They appeal from an order dismissing the action after the trial court sustained, without leave to amend, the demurrer of defendants Citicorp Savings & Loan Association (Citicorp), and Citicorp Savings Service Corporation (CSSC) (collectively defendants) to the second amended complaint. The trial court sustained the demurrer on two grounds: (1) plaintiffs’ state claims were preempted by federal law contained in the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933 (HOLA), 12 United States Code section 1461 et seq., and by regulations issued by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (the Board) and (2) plaintiffs’ federal claims under HOLA are barred by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction which requires that a party exhaust its administrative remedies before the Board prior to seeking judicial relief. Plaintiffs also appeal from the order denying their motion to reconsider the order sustaining the demurrers. We do not find plaintiffs’ claims preempted by federal law and reverse the order dismissing the action.

The second amended complaint alleges 12 causes of action against defendants charging violation of the Cartwright Act, civil conspiracy, bad faith denial of the contract, unfair competition, breach of contract, fraud, breach of agency duty, and seeking a constructive trust and an accounting. The trial court granted defendants’ request to allow them to bifurcate their demurrers to the second amended complaint by allowing them to first file demurrers on all grounds based on federal law and later, if necessary, to file additional demurrers to the individual causes of action.

Defendants demurred to the entire complaint and to each cause of action against them on the grounds the state law causes of action are barred by the doctrine of federal preemption, the federal causes of action under HOLA fail to state a cause of action under that statute and plaintiffs have failed to plead they have exhausted their administrative remedies, as required by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.

*957 Summary of Second Amended Complaint

We summarize the allegations of the second amended complaint with respect to Citicorp and CSSC. Plaintiffs are California residents who own an interest in California real property which is subject to a deed of trust, the beneficial interest of which is or was held by Citicorp or its predecessor. At the time of recordation of the deed of trust, plaintiffs were required to pay to Citicorp a reconveyance fee which was identified as a “trustee’s fee” or a “trustee’s acceptance fee.”

A deed of trust is a three-party contract among the beneficiary-lender, the trustor-borrower, and the trustee. The trustee holds title to the property until the debt is repaid, at which time the title held by the trustee is reconveyed to the borrower. Reconveyance is accomplished by the beneficiary executing a request for reconveyance. When the trustee receives the request, the trustee executes and records a deed of reconveyance transferring the security interest to the present owner of the property. Recordation of the deed of reconveyance extinguishes the lien on the property created by the deed of trust.

Citicorp has a standard form deed of trust which identifies its wholly owned subsidiary, CSSC, as trustee. Citicorp’s predecessor also used a deed of trust form which required borrowers to accept trustees chosen by the predecessor. Numerous other companies in California were and are willing to act as trustees under deeds of trust and these companies either require no payment for reconveyance or require payment at the time reconveyance is requested.

Where a deed of trust allows imposition of a reconveyance fee, California Civil Code section 2941 controls the method by which the trustee may charge the fee. Section 2941 does not allow collection of the reconveyance fee up to 30 years or more before the date the loan is repaid.

Since 1975, Citicorp has engaged in an ongoing business practice of charging for and collecting fees for reconveyance services at the time loans are originally processed and a particular deed of trust is recorded. Furthermore, Citicorp is now collecting the reconveyance fee at a time when it is uncertain the reconveyance would ever be provided. Citicorp frequently sells large pools of real property loans in the secondary mortgage market, including to the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA). When such sales are made, Citicorp does not account for reconveyance fees to the purchasers of such loans. Some of these new beneficiaries have charged plaintiffs a second reconveyance fee.

*958 Since 1977, FNMA has required that a deed of trust for a loan it purchases must contain a provision requiring reconveyance of the trust deed without charge. In order to be able to sell loans to FNMA, Citicorp disguised the reconveyance fees it charged by using other names. In this manner, Citicorp collected reconveyance fees despite FNMA regulations and despite the express agreement not to charge such reconveyance fees which is set forth in Citicorp’s FNMA standard form deeds of trust. Citicorp has failed to refund the prepaid reconveyance fees to the borrower-trustors when the real property securing the loan is sold by the borrower-trustor, although any subsequent reconveyance would not inure to the benefit of the borrower-trustor, in violation of Civil Code section 2941, subdivision (e). Citicorp’s manner of collecting reconveyance fees is in violation of HOLA and the regulations implementing HOLA.

Discussion

A. Preemption

On appeal, plaintiffs contend federal law neither expressly nor impliedly preempts state law with respect to their claims. They also assert there is no conflict between state and federal law which would require preemption by federal law.

1. Express Preemption

“In determining whether a state statute is pre-empted by federal law and therefore invalid under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, our sole task is to ascertain the intent of Congress. Federal law may supersede state law in several different ways. First, when acting within constitutional limits, Congress is empowered to pre-empt state law by so stating in express terms. Second, congressional intent to pre-empt state law in a particular area may be inferred where the scheme of federal regulation is sufficiently comprehensive to make reasonable the inference that Congress ‘left no room’ for supplementary state regulation. . . . [fl] As a third alternative, in those areas where Congress has not completely displaced state regulation, federal law may nonetheless pre-empt state law to the extent it actually conflicts with federal law. Such a conflict occurs either because ‘compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility,’ or because the state law stands ‘as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.’ Nevertheless, pre-emption is not to be lightly presumed.” (California Federal S. & L. Assn. v. Guerra (1987) 479 U.S. 272, 280-281 [93 L.Ed.2d 613, 623, 107 S.Ct. 683], citations omitted.) In R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

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Bluebook (online)
210 Cal. App. 3d 953, 258 Cal. Rptr. 746, 1989 Cal. App. LEXIS 511, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/siegel-v-american-savings-loan-assn-calctapp-1989.