Just A Good Old Boy Who Won't Take Crap

OFF THE WIRE
simplejustice.com
It's not the sort of thing that doesn't happen in every state, every county, across the country, a bank wants to foreclose on somebody's mortgage, and the homeowner isn't happy about it.  In this case, U.S. Bank wanted to foreclose on Otis Wayne Phillips home, and Phillips wasn't inclined to take it lying down. 

The problem is that Phillips sought to refinance under the HAMP program, for which U.S. Bank received $20 billion from the federal government. Phillips, being a taxpayer, believed he ought to benefit from his tax money going to the bank in conjunction with having some problems paying his mortgage, and so applied to participate in the program. U.S. Bank said "no."  That's it, no. No explanation, no nothing. Just no. So Phillips sued.

Judge Dennis Blackmon in the Superior Court of Carroll County, Georgia, got the case, and U.S. Bank moved to dismiss, arguing that Phillips had no standing.  Here's the decision.

Sometimes, only the courts of law stand to protect the taxpayer. Somewhere, someone has to stand up. Well, sometimes is now, and the place is the Great State of Georgia. The defendant's motion to dismiss is hereby denied.

This, for those of you who are confused, is a judge who has the inexplicable sense that they gave him the robe to do right rather than cover his butt.   Judge Blackmon includes in the body of his recitation of facts a parenthetical that should go down in history as one of the great statements of the obvious:

(This court cannot imagine why U. S. Bank will not make known to Mr. Phillips, a taxpayer, how his numbers put him outside the federal guidelines to receive a loan modification. Taking $20 Billion of taxpayer money was no problem for U. S. Bank. A cynical judge might believe that this entire motion to dismiss is a desperate attempt to avoid the discovery period, where U. S. Bank would have to tell Mr. Phillips how his financial situation did not qualify him for a modification. Or, perhaps he was qualified, yet didn't receive the modification, in violation of U. S. Bank's Service Participation Agreement (SPA). A cynical judge might think that, if the guidelines clearly prevented Mr. Phillips from getting his modification, then U. S. Bank would have trotted out that fact in mathematic equations, pie chart, and bar graphs, all on 8 by 10 glossy photo paper, with circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back explaining each winning number.¹ U. S. Bank's silence on this issue might heighten the suspicions of such a cynical jurist. I, on the other hand, am sure that nothing of the sort could be true. Maybe U. S. Bank no longer has any of the $20 billion dollars left, and so their lack of written explanation might be attributed to some kind of ink reduction program to save money. I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why the U. S. Bank will not print out the ONE page of figures that show Mr. Phillip's financials compared to the HAMP guidelines to clear all this up.)

I would be remiss not to include the footnote:

¹ Apologies to Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant

It doesn't get any better than this. 

For so many of us, a decision this frank, this bold, is something rarely seen coming from the hand of a judge, far more concerned with officiousness and stature than using his authority to provide redress of grievances.  Judge Blackmon is not such a judge.  Sure, he's more likely to run across an executive from U.S. Bank on the back nine than Otis Phillips, and sure, Phillips isn't likely to have the ability to make a dent in a re-election campaign.  And yet Judge Blackmon didn't care.

I have no clue whether this decision is correct on the law.  It smacks of a decision ripe to be reversed on appeal, leaving a taxpayer, a homeowner, an ordinary guy without recourse against some big bank, by a panel of judges who lack Judge Blackmon's spine.  And yet, the good judge wasn't scared into submission.

Of course, proper use of a reference to Alice's Restaurant, even though he felt obliged to credit the source (which should not be necessary, particularly given how close we are to Thanksgiving), ought to immunize the decision from reversal.  There's just no arguing with Arlo.

So, I tip my hat to Judge Dennis Blackmon, who avoided any lapse into cynicism and showed that he's got the guts to take a stand.  Well done.

H/T Peter E. Brownback III (which he has since informed me came via a post by Michael Froomkin at Discourse