February 13, 2013
Robo-Signing as Abuse of Process?
Apparently not. The Florida Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling in Pino v. Bank of New York that a trial court does not have the authority “to grant relief from a voluntary dismissal where the motion alleges fraud on the court in the proceedings but no affirmative relief on behalf of the plaintiff has been obtained from the court.” (3)
In Pino,the homeowner defendant had sought to have the trial court strike “a notice of voluntary dismissal of the mortgage foreclosure action” and have “the case reinstated in order for the trial court to then dismiss the action with prejudice as a sanction to the mortgage holder for allegedly filing fraudulent documentation regarding ownership of the mortgage note.” (2)
As the court noted, the question before it was very limited. It indicates that the “case is not about whether a trial court has the authority in an ongoing civil proceeding to impose sanctions on a party who has filed fraudulent documentation with the court.” (2) That being said, if the judiciary has an epidemic of fraudulent filings in plain sight — foreclosure filings with facially flawed documentation– could it and should it have done more? If foreclosure mill law firms (and debt collection law firms) realize that they can file flawed papers and either withdraw or correct them later on, where are defendants, particularly unrepresented ones, left?
The common law already acknowledges the tort of Abuse of Process which awards damages against a party who maliciously and intentionally perverts judicial process. And yet, the judiciary has taken very few systemic measures to address what has become a dominant business model for foreclosure and debt collection law firms. So, the Florida Supreme Court is right that it only addressed a limited question under Florida law. It could have sought to rule more broadly about the judiciary’s inherent authority to protect the process of litigation. (See 33) But it chose not to.
The Court does acknowledge that there are bigger issues at play, as it asked the Florida Civil Procedure Rules Committee to consider whether additional sanctions should be available to courts to address fraudulent pleadings. (43) But it is also time for the courts to deal with the bigger questions. How should courts deal in particular with robo-signing practices endemic to the 50 states? How does the rule of law suffer when officers of the court are not required (i) to do due diligence as to their own filings and (ii) to stand by them when they turn out to be fraudulent or materially flawed? And how can that state of affairs best be remedied?
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