Justice Trampling Over Homeowners' Rights As "Rocket Docket" Foreclosure Hearings Before "Rubber-Stamping" Judges Can Last Less Than 20 Seconds

In Fort Myers, Florida, The Wall Street Journal reports:

• Hoping to save her house, Saundra Hill Scott arrived at the county courthouse clutching dog-eared mortgage bills and letters from her lender. She need not have bothered. The foreclosure hearing lasted less than 20 seconds, with Judge John Carlin asking her two questions: Are you current on your mortgage and are you living in the home? She answered no and yes and then offered to show him her paperwork.

• "I don't need to see that. That's between you and the bank," he said as he gave Ms. Hill Scott, her husband and three grandchildren 60 days to work out a deal with their lender or vacate their three-bedroom house.

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• To clear a huge backlog of foreclosures, judges are hearing "rocket dockets" of nearly 1,000 cases a day and calling retired colleagues back to the bench to help ease the workload.

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• Many defendants in Fort Myers are speculators who never lived in the houses and don't bother to show up for the hearings or respond to court summonses. But some of the homeowners who do come to court are annoyed that they're given only a few seconds to speak to the judge. "The judge didn't want to hear from me," said a frustrated Reed Morgan, a self-employed business consultant, wearing loafers and a blue oxford shirt, after Judge Carlin gave him 60 days to work out a modification plan with his lender or vacate his three-bedroom house.

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• Lee County judges say they are trying to screen for cases that would benefit from mediation, but Chief Judge G. Keith Cary opposes making such a requirement. "A guy hasn't paid his mortgage in over a year,'' says Judge Cary. "What's there to talk about?"(1)

For more, see A Florida Court's 'Rocket Docket' Blasts Through Foreclosure Cases (2 Questions, 15 Seconds, 45 Days to Get Out; 'What's to Talk About?' Says a Judge).

(1) Chief Judge Cary asks "What's there to talk about?" The obvious point to talk about is whether or not the foreclosing lenders have standing to bring the foreclosure actions in the first place, and whether the courts have any jurisdiction to hear these cases should the foreclosing lenders fail to establish proper standing to file them.

In Dep't of Revenue v. Daystar Farms, Inc., NO.: 5D01-1554 , 803 So. 2d 892; 2002 Fla. App. LEXIS 27 (Fla. 5th DCA 2002), a Florida appellate court, quoting from prior precedent, made this observation about standing and jurisdiction (bold text is my emphasis):

• "In the administrative context, '[s]tanding has been equated with jurisdiction of the subject matter of litigation and has been held subject to the same rules . . . .'" Grand Dunes, Ltd. v. Walton County, 714 So. 2d 473, 475 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998).

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• "[C]ourts are bound to take notice of the limits of their authority and if want of jurisdiction appears at any stage of the proceedings, original or appellate, the court should notice the defect and enter an appropriate order." Polk County v. Sofka, 702 So. 2d 1243, 1245 (Fla. 1997).

I wonder if the court has taken it upon itself to specifically inquire of the foreclosing lenders as to their standing to bring these actions, or whether it simply opts for a "head in the sand" approach in dealing with the issue. I also wonder if Chief Judge Cary has given consideration to the possiblitity that foreclosure judgments granted by courts without having jurisdiction may be void. The above observation made in Dep't of Revenue v. Daystar Farms, Inc. appears to indicate that the court has an obligation to make some inquiry as to the foreclosing lenders' standing to sue and enter the appropriate dismissal order where standing is lacking, leaving it without jurisdiction to hear the case.

Given everything written in numerous media reports from across the country over the last couple of years on the carelessness of lenders, servicers, and their attorneys in their failure to establish having proper standing when bringing foreclosure actions, it would seem that judges hearing foreclosure cases, generally, should consider themselves to be on notice that the standing issue should, as a matter of practice, be automatically addressed in every foreclosure action. The rule that a litigant's standing to sue is a threshold issue to be resolved before the matter can be reached on the merits is so well established in jurisdictions throughout the country that citation of authority is hardly necessary. Apparently not, however, in the Fort Myers' courtrooms under Chief Judge Cary's supervision. KappaMtgDocsMissing