Tag Archives: U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Spokeo Inc. v. Robins should be helpful to mortgage servicers. But at the same time, the ruling leaves many questions unanswered.

Bank of New York Mellon told the U.S. Supreme Court in a filing that overturning a Second Circuit Court ruling would mean disaster for the residential mortgage-backed securities market.

A district judge refused to revive the case in September 2013 based on allegations by the DOJ, saying that the outcome of the case would not have been changed by new information brought up about representations made by S&P to investors.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday by a 5-4 vote in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. that disparate impact claims can legally be brought about under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Representative Scott Garrett (R-New Jersey) proposed the amendment to H.R.2578, known as the Fiscal Year 2016 Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Act, sponsored by Representative John Abney Culberson (R-Texas) and introduced on May 27. The act, including Garrett's amendment, passed largely among party lines by a vote of 242 to 173 on Wednesday with only 12 Democrats voting in favor and only 10 Republicans voting against.

Bank of America appealed the bankruptcy judge's ruling for the two cases, but the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the bankruptcy court's decision in May 2014, going against the Dewsnup ruling by saying that decision did not apply when the collateral on a junior lien (second mortgage) did not have sufficient enough value. The bank subsequently appealed the 11th Circuit Court's ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday overturned a decision by an appeals court and granted a writ of certiorari to investors of ING Group, allowing them to continue with their class action suit against ING that accuses the Dutch bank of withholding information about the riskiness of its mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis.

In the opening arguments on Tuesday morning for two cases in the U.S. Supreme Court to determine the legality of extinguishing, or "stripping off" an underwater second mortgage as unsecured debt for a debtor in bankruptcy, an attorney representing Bank of America contended that the high court should uphold a 1992 decision that outlawed stripping off, while attorneys representing the debtors argued that the decision is irrelevant to these two cases.

Yale Law School's Mortgage Foreclosure Litigation Clinic and the Connecticut Fair Housing Center (CFHC) have filed an Amicus Brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the respondents in a case to decide whether underwater homeowners in Chapter 7 bankruptcy can legally eliminate the liability on second mortgages, a process known as "stripping off," according to an announcement on Yale Law School's website.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments both for and against the controversial "disparate impact" rule in housing, stakeholders on both sides are awaiting the Court's decision as to whether or not disparate impact claims can be made under the Fair Housing Act.