Wilson v. Bank of America

76 So. 3d 1213, 2011 WL 4376548
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided September 20, 2011·No. No. 2011-CA-0392·Published

Opinion

JOAN BERNARD ARMSTRONG, Chief Judge.

I,The plaintiff-appellant, Edna Wilson, appeals a judgment of November 10, 2010, that granted the Motion for Summary Judgment filed by the defendants-appel-lees, Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. (hereinafter “Countrywide”), Bank of America, N.A. (hereinafter “BoA”), State Street Bank and Trust Company (hereinafter “State Street”) and Beal Bank S.S.B., (hereinafter “Beal Bank”), which defendants are hereinafter referred to collectively as the “Servicing Defendants”. The summary judgment condemned the plaintiff to pay “the amount of the unpaid principal and interest plus any late fees, accrued interest, and all amounts advanced, including amounts advanced for lender-placed insurance and taxes, and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in enforcing the Note and Mortgage.” We affirm.

We review summary judgments de novo and that includes both fact and law. We must emphasize that we cannot agree with the contention of the Servicing Defendants that we apply the manifest error/clearly wrong standard of review to the trial court’s summary judgment findings of fact. Stobart v. State, Through DOTD, 617 So.2d 880 (La.1993), the case relied upon by the Servicing Defendants in support of this contention was not a summary judgment case. The \9de novo standard of review regarding facts is of particular significance as this is a fact intensive case.

Moreover, we note that despite the legislative mandate that summary judgments are now favored, factual inferences reasonably drawn from the evidence must be construed in favor of the party opposing the motion, and all doubt must be resolved in the opponent’s favor. Willis v. Medders, 00-2507, p. 2 (La.12/8/00), 775 So.2d 1049, 1050.

On May 22, 2001, the plaintiff filed a petition for damages against BoA d/b/a Bank of America Mortgage Company and State Street, claiming damages arising out of the defendants’ failure to properly respond to her “qualified written request” as required by 12 U.S.C. § 2605(e)(1) of the Real Estate Settlement Procedure Act (RESPA). Countrywide and Beal Bank are parties to these proceedings as successors in interest to BoA and State Street.

The plaintiffs petition also alleges that BoA “violated it[s] fiduciary obligation to plaintiff as plaintiffs insurance agent in obtaining a policy that costs so much,” a reference to the Homeowners policy that BoA forced placed at a premium cost of $1404.00 in order to protect the mortgage collateral when the plaintiffs prior policy lapsed. The plaintiffs prior policy allegedly bore the much lower premium rate of $695.00. However, the plaintiff makes no specific argument concerning the violation of fiduciary duty on appeal.

While the plaintiffs appeal is concentrated on RE SPA, she does make the following general argument in her brief:

In its judgment, the trial court awarded to B[o]A “all unpaid principal and interest, plus late fees, accrued interest and all amounts advanced including amounts advanced for lender-placed insurance and taxes and | ^reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in enforcing the note and mortgage.”
No evidence was referred to and the trial court did not give any consideration to Wilson’s no cause of action defenses, prescription defense and the fact that there were material facts in dispute as to RESPA, the debt, the life insurance and the hazard insurance that B[o]A had purchased for Wilson without her consent.
The trial court completely ignored that the law of RESPA should be lib[1216] erally construed in favor of the borrower.

The petition also alleges that the failure of BoA to properly communicate amounts due on the account “amounts to violations of the Louisiana Consumer Protection Acts LSA-RS 51:1401 et se[q].” The plaintiff does not make any reference to the Louisiana Consumer Protection Act in this appeal.

The petition concludes with allegations that BoA violated the U.C.C. by acting in bad faith as making a claim for a return of premiums charged to her for life insurance as she never purchased any such insurance. In her appeal, the plaintiff makes only a passing reference to her U.C.C. claim in the last sentence of her reply brief.

Ms. Wilson admits that on April 5, 1984, she borrowed $52,800.00 from United Federal Savings and Loan Association and executed a note and mortgage on property located at 3624-26 Frenchman Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70112 in its favor. The Servicing Defendants do not dispute that this loan falls under the provisions of RESPA.

The sequence of events leading up to the commencement of this litigation is basically as set forth in the trial court’s written reasons for judgment.1 After |4making the loan, Ms. Wilson made regular payments until November 1999. She then missed payments or was late with payments. BoA was the loan servicer at the time. In May of 2000, Ms. Wilson and BoA entered into a Forebearance Agreement that would have allowed her to bring the loan current. However, she failed to make any payments under the agreement.

Before BoA filed any foreclosure pleadings, Ms. Wilson filed this action alleging that the Servicing Defendants violated RESPA by failing to respond to her Qualified Written Request as required by statute. She further alleged that as a result of this failure, she was entitled to actual and statutory damages.

The Servicing Defendants reconvened and sued for the sums they allege to be due under the note and mortgage.

The trial court granted the Servicing Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment based on a finding that they complied fully with RESPA and that they were due all amounts they claimed under the note and mortgage, although the judgment of the trial court does not specify what those amounts might be.

In addition to plaintiffs RESPA arguments, the plaintiff contends that the Servicing Defendants are not entitled to any recovery because they failed to send notices by certified mail as required by the note and mortgage.

Paragraph 14 of the mortgage states that the notice has to be sent by certified, return receipt mail. However, we read the “certified mail” requirement as a safe harbor requirement, that is, if the notice is sent by certified mail it is, ipso facto, proof that the lender has sent notice to the borrower. Thus, the purpose of the certification requirement is a means to eliminate disputes as to notice. It is not |Ban end in itself. Where there is no dispute [1217] that notice was sent and received, the question of whether it was sent by certified mail becomes irrelevant. In this case the plaintiff does not deny having received any of the correspondences directed to her by BoA. Therefore, the lack of certified notice provides no defense to the plaintiff.

The provisions of RESPA relevant to this case are found in 12 U.S.C.A. § 2605(e) et seq.:

Notice of receipt of inquiry

(A) In general

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Wilson v. Bank of America, 76 So. 3d 1213, 2011 WL 4376548 (La. Ct. App. 2011).

76 So. 3d 1213 (Wilson v. Bank of America) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Stobart v. State Through DOTD
617 So. 2d 880 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1993)
Willis v. Medders
775 So. 2d 1049 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 2000)