A couple of interesting foreclosure-related orders from the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, as reported in this week’s Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly (subscription required).
In Morse v. Residential Credit Solutions, Inc., Judge Rya W. Zobel denied the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case to the Massachusetts Land Court. Judge Zobel ruled that, although the plaintiff’s complaint sought only equitable relief – a declaration that the plaintiff’s mortgage was unenforceable, and the expungement of an assignment of that mortgage from MERS to the defendant – “the fair market value of the property to be foreclosed upon is an acceptable measure of the amount in controversy for purposes of diversity jurisdiction.” Because there was evidence suggesting that the fair market value of the property is over $350,000, and that the amount owed on the plaintiff’s loan is over $225,000, Judge Zobel found that the amount in controversy far exceeds the jurisdictional threshold of $75,000, so the case can stay in federal court.
In Akar v. Federal National Mortgage Association, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton declined, in part, to accept Magistrate Judge Judith Gail Dein’s recommended disposition of motions for judgment on the pleadings filed by defendants Fannie Mae and Wells Fargo, N.A. Judge Gorton differed with Magistrate Judge Dein in just one respect: he found the plaintiffs’ allegations insufficient to make out a claim against Wells Fargo for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Accepting the plaintiffs’ assertion that Wells Fargo foreclosed on their property after repeatedly assuring them that the sale would be postponed while their loan modification request was pending, Judge Gorton ruled that, while this conduct might support the plaintiffs’ claims for bad faith, misrepresentation, and violation of M.G.L. c. 93A (the state Consumer Protection Act), it does not amount to conduct that is “extreme and outrageous beyond all bounds of decency,” or “utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” as required by Massachusetts law. Like beauty, apparently, outrageousness is in the eye of the beholder.