Dyer v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. , 841 F.3d 550 ( 2016 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 15-2421
EDYTHE L. DYER,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A., d/b/a America's Servicing Company;
U.S. BANK, N.A., as Trustee for CSFB Mortgage-Backed
Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2005-2,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
[Hon. M. Page Kelley, U.S. Magistrate Judge]
Before
Torruella, Kayatta, and Barron,
Circuit Judges.
Glenn F. Russell, Jr., with whom Glenn F. Russell Jr., &
Associates, P.C. was on brief, for appellant.
David E. Fialkow, with whom Jeffrey S. Patterson, Michael R.
Stanley, and K&L Gates LLP were on brief, for appellees.
November 14, 2016
BARRON, Circuit Judge. The plaintiff, Edythe Dyer,
brought this suit against U.S. Bank, N.A. ("U.S. Bank") and Wells
Fargo Bank, N.A. ("Wells Fargo"), arising out of a foreclosure
sale on her property. The suit was dismissed, and we now affirm.
I.
In 2004, Dyer executed a promissory note to Dreamhouse
Mortgage Corporation ("Dreamhouse") and granted a mortgage on her
property at 41 Commonwealth Avenue, Unit #9, in Boston,
Massachusetts (the "Property"). She granted the mortgage to
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. ("MERS") as the
"nominee" for Dreamhouse and its successors and assigns. In 2008,
MERS executed a document entitled "Assignment of Mortgage," which
transferred the mortgage to U.S. Bank, as trustee. The document
was recorded with the Registry of Deeds for Suffolk County,
Massachusetts. MERS also executed an assignment of the mortgage
to U.S. Bank in 2011. In 2012, MERS published a "Confirmatory
Assignment" confirming the 2008 assignment. That document
explained that the 2011 assignment was a nullity because, in 2011,
MERS did not have standing to assign the mortgage, given that it
had already transferred the mortgage to U.S. Bank in 2008. In
2013, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank's servicer of the loan, recorded an
affidavit in the registry of deeds attesting that, as of that time,
U.S. Bank held the note secured by Dyer's mortgage.
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In April 2015, U.S. Bank notified Dyer that it intended
to foreclose on the Property by utilizing the statutory power of
sale provided for in Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 183 § 21.
That provision permits a proper party to execute a foreclosure
sale without prior judicial authorization. Eaton v. Fed. Nat'l
Mortg. Ass'n, 969 N.E.2d 1118, 1127 (Mass. 2012). The requirements
for exercising that statutory power of sale are laid out in
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 244 § 14. See Fed. Nat'l Mortg.
Ass'n v. Rego, 50 N.E.3d 419, 422-23 (Mass. 2016).
Dyer filed suit in Massachusetts state court on May 26,
2015. Dyer named U.S. Bank as one of the defendants. She sought
a declaratory judgment that U.S. Bank is not a proper party under
Section 14 to utilize the statutory power of sale, and she also
sought damages against U.S. Bank for slander of title based on
that same allegation about the status of U.S. Bank under Section
14. Dyer also named Wells Fargo, the servicer of the loan, as a
defendant in the suit. In her claim against Wells Fargo, Dyer
sought damages under Massachusetts' catch-all consumer protection
statute, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A.
The defendants removed the case to the United States
District Court for the District of Massachusetts on the basis of
diversity jurisdiction. In federal court, the parties consented
to proceeding before a magistrate judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(c). Dyer then filed a separate motion for a preliminary
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injunction to stop the foreclosure sale. The Magistrate Judge
denied that motion. The defendants thereafter filed a motion for
judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 12(c).
After a full round of briefing, the Magistrate Judge
granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings. In so doing,
the Magistrate Judge dismissed all of Dyer's claims. Dyer now
appeals.
II.
We start with the aspect of this appeal that concerns
U.S. Bank. Dyer does not challenge the Magistrate Judge's ruling
that Dyer's slander of title claim rests on the same contention as
her request for a declaratory judgment: that U.S. Bank was not
authorized to exercise the statutory power of sale. Thus, we fully
resolve the U.S. Bank-related portion of Dyer's appeal so long as
we conclude that U.S. Bank was authorized to exercise the statutory
power of sale.1
In contending that U.S. Bank was not authorized to
exercise the statutory power of sale, Dyer chiefly argues that
1 Following the Magistrate Judge's order dismissing Dyer's
claims, the foreclosure sale occurred. Accordingly, we issued an
order requesting supplemental briefing as to whether Dyer's appeal
of the denial of her request for declaratory relief had been
rendered moot by that sale. Because that request for relief relies
on the same claim regarding U.S. Bank's status under Section 14 as
her request for damages for her slander of title claim, this appeal
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U.S. Bank was not the holder of the mortgage when it purported to
exercise the statutory power of sale and that, in consequence of
the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court ("SJC") in Eaton, U.S.
Bank was not entitled to exercise that power. See Eaton, 969
N.E.2d at 1131 (holding that, in order to foreclose under Section
14, an entity must both hold the mortgage and either hold the note
or act as an agent of the noteholder). In so contending, Dyer
acknowledges that there was a purported 2008 assignment of the
mortgage from MERS to U.S. Bank. Dyer acknowledges as well that
U.S. Bank referenced this assignment in the statutorily required
notice. See Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 244 § 14. But, Dyer contends,
that 2008 assignment was void for a number of reasons. We do not
agree.
Dyer first argues that the assignment was void because
MERS, when it made the 2008 assignment, was neither the noteholder
nor the agent of the noteholder. Instead, MERS held the mortgage
only as a "nominee" for the lender, Dreamhouse, and its successors
and assigns. But we held in Culhane v. Aurora Loan Services of
Nebraska, 708 F.3d 282 (1st Cir. 2013), that a mortgage contract
that names "MERS . . . as nominee for [Lender] and [Lender's]
successors and assigns" does suffice to make MERS the mortgage
holder and then authorize MERS to assign the mortgage on behalf of
is not moot. McKenna v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 693 F.3d 207, 210
n.2 (1st Cir. 2012).
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the lender to the lender's successors and assigns. Id. at 293.
And here, Dyer's 2004 mortgage contract contains the same language
regarding MERS, and its status as nominee (in this case for
Dreamhouse), as the one that we addressed in Culhane.
Dyer responds that Culhane is not controlling. She
contends that Culhane relied on a construction of Section 14 that
pre-dated the SJC's decision in Eaton and that Eaton renders that
construction impermissible. While Eaton did expressly reserve the
question of whether a "nominee" is an "agent" of the noteholder,
it did so only in connection with its discussion of whether MERS's
status as a "nominee" of the lender empowered it to execute the
statutory power of sale. See Eaton, 969 N.E.2d at 1134 n.29.
Eaton in no way suggested that MERS's status as a nominee was
insufficient to permit it to hold or assign a mortgage to a
successor or assign of the lender. And, in Culhane, in which we
expressly applied Eaton, Culhane, 708 F.3d at 288 n.4, we concluded
that MERS's status as a nominee was sufficient to permit it to
hold a mortgage and to make such an assignment. Id. at 293. Thus,
Dyer's first ground for contending that the 2008 assignment is
void is without merit in consequence of the language of the 2004
contract naming MERS as Dreamhouse's nominee.2
2 Eaton holds that, even if the mortgage and the note had
previously been separated, a party may only exercise Section 14's
power of sale if at the time of the sale it holds both the mortgage
and the note. Eaton, 969 N.E.2d at 1129. In addition to contesting
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Moving past the terms of the 2004 mortgage contract,
Dyer goes on to contend that the 2008 assignment from MERS to U.S.
Bank is void for an independent reason. She contends that MERS
assigned the mortgage to U.S. Bank in violation of a trust
agreement between U.S. Bank and the investors in the loan, which
empowered U.S. Bank to act on behalf of the investors, and that
the breach of the trust agreement rendered the assignment void.
But in Butler v. Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas, 748 F.3d 28, 37
(1st Cir. 2014), we held that an assignment made in contravention
of such a trust agreement is at most voidable at the option of the
parties to the trust agreement, not void as a matter of law.
Therefore, the alleged violation of the trust agreement does not
void the 2008 assignment and thereby strip U.S. Bank of its status
as a holder of the mortgage. Thus, this argument, too, fails.
U.S. Bank's status as the mortgage holder in consequence of the
2008 assignment from MERS, Dyer separately challenges the
Magistrate Judge's finding that U.S. Bank also held the note. The
Magistrate Judge based that finding on both a copy of the note
endorsed in blank that U.S. Bank produced and a copy of the 2013
affidavit by Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank's agent and servicer of the
loan, stating that U.S. Bank held the note. Dyer provides no basis
for rejecting that finding beyond her conclusory contrary
assertion and a reference to an allonge, which she does not develop
into an argument that would warrant reversal of the Magistrate
Judge's finding. We thus treat as waived any argument that U.S.
Bank was not a proper party to execute the sale because, even if
U.S. Bank held the mortgage via the 2008 assignment from MERS, it
did not also hold the note. See United States v. Zannino, 895
F.2d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1990).
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Dyer next argues that the 2008 assignment is void for
yet another reason: the 2012 Confirmatory Assignment states that
MERS lacked "standing" to assign the mortgage. That document,
however, makes clear that MERS lacked "standing" to assign the
mortgage in 2011, because MERS had validly assigned the mortgage
to U.S. Bank in 2008. The Confirmatory Assignment thus hardly
casts doubt on the validity of the 2008 assignment to U.S. Bank;
in fact, it appears to confirm it. We therefore reject this
argument as well.
Finally, we reject Dyer's separate argument that U.S.
Bank was not a proper party to exercise the statutory power of
sale because the notice of sale that Section 14 required U.S. Bank
to publish did not comply with Section 14's requirements. See
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 244 § 14 (stating that "in the event a mortgagee
holds a mortgage pursuant to an assignment, no notice under this
section shall be valid unless (i) at the time such notice is
mailed, an assignment, or a chain of assignments, evidencing the
assignment of the mortgage to the foreclosing mortgagee has been
duly recorded in the registry of deeds for the county or district
where the land lies and (ii) the recording information for all
recorded assignments is referenced in the notice of sale required
in this section."). Specifically, she contends that notice failed
to refer to what Dyer identifies as various "intermediate
transfers."
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Dyer's complaint is less than clear as to precisely what
she contends was being assigned in these "intermediate transfers,"
and her briefing does not do much to help clarify matters. The
premise of this argument appears to be, however, that MERS, as the
nominee of Dreamhouse, never properly held the mortgage. From
this premise, she contends that the notice published by U.S. Bank
had to set forth a chain of title that ran from Dreamhouse, the
original lender, to the various parties the complaint identifies
as being involved in "intermediate transfers" to U.S. Bank.
The problem with this argument stems from its mistaken
premise. As we have explained, per our decision in Culhane, MERS's
status as nominee did not bar it from holding the mortgage. See
Culhane, 708 F.3d at 291-92. Thus, MERS was the record holder of
the mortgage in consequence of the mortgage that Dyer granted to
MERS as nominee for Dreamhouse in 2004. Moreover, Dyer does not
allege that MERS subsequently assigned the mortgage back to
Dreamhouse or to any other entity prior to MERS's 2008 assignment
of the mortgage to U.S. Bank.
Thus, even accepting as we must the factual allegations
in Dyer's complaint that there were what she calls "intermediate
transfers," she provides no basis for concluding that MERS did not
remain the sole record holder of the mortgage up until the time it
assigned that mortgage to U.S. Bank in 2008. In fact, because
MERS continued to hold the mortgage all along, in keeping with the
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way in which the MERS system operates, Eaton, 969 N.E.2d at 1122
n.5, it appears that the intermediate transfers Dyer identifies in
her complaint were merely transfers of the "beneficial ownership
interest[]" in the mortgage among MERS members. Id.3
Against this background, the notice published by U.S.
Bank complied with Section 14 for a simple reason. The notice
referenced the assignment (in 2008) from the record holder of the
mortgage, MERS, to U.S. Bank. The notice thus did just what it
needed to do: it referenced "an assignment of the mortgage to the
foreclosing mortgagee" that "has been duly recorded in the registry
of deeds for the county or district where the land lies" and for
which "the recording information . . . [was] referenced in the
notice of sale required in this section." Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 244
§ 14; cf. U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. Ibanez, 941 N.E.2d 40, 53 (Mass.
2011) ("A foreclosing entity may provide a complete chain of
assignments linking it to the record holder of the mortgage, or a
single assignment from the record holder of the mortgage.").
In sum, none of Dyer's arguments as to why U.S. Bank was
not authorized to exercise the statutory power of sale under
3 The SJC explained that MERS is the "mortgagee of record for
mortgage loans registered on the MERS electronic registration
system, which tracks servicing rights and beneficial ownership
interests in those loans; the system allows these servicing rights
and beneficial ownership interests to be traded electronically
between members without the need to record publicly each mortgage
assignment." Eaton, 969 N.E.2d at 1122 n.5.
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Section 14 have merit. We thus affirm the order dismissing her
slander of title claim.
III.
In addition to Dyer's two claims against U.S. Bank, Dyer
also brought a claim against Wells Fargo. In that claim, Dyer
sought damages under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A. That
statute prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the
conduct of any trade or commerce." Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93A § 2(a).
The statute also requires that, thirty days before filing a claim
under Chapter 93A, a claimant must, as a general matter, send a
"written demand for relief" to the defendant, outlining the unfair
or deceptive act or practice and the injury suffered. Id. § 9(3).
Dyer alleged in her complaint that the suit itself served
as the demand letter required by Chapter 93A. The Magistrate Judge
rightly held that the suit could not serve to fulfill the demand
letter requirement, because the demand letter must be sent prior
to filing suit. See id.; Rodi v. S. New England Sch. of Law, 389
F.3d 5, 19 (1st Cir. 2004). Accordingly, the Magistrate Judge
ruled that the claim must be dismissed.
On appeal, Dyer contends for the first time that she was
not required to send a demand letter at all. She relies on the
exception to the demand letter requirement set forth in section
9(3) of Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A. The exception
provides that "[t]he demand requirements of this paragraph shall
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not apply if . . . the prospective respondent does not maintain a
place of business or does not keep assets within the
[C]ommonwealth."
Dyer contends that Moronta v. Nationstar Mortgage, LLC,
41 N.E.3d 311, 315 n.11 (Mass. App. Ct. 2015), makes clear that
this exception applies so long as the putative defendant does not
maintain both a place of business and assets within the
Commonwealth. And she contends that Wells Fargo has no assets in
the Commonwealth. The defendants respond that Moronta sets forth
that proposition about the exception's disjunctive nature only in
dicta and that this dicta is in conflict with our prior decision
in McKenna v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 693 F.3d 207, 218 (1st Cir.
2012).
Dyer did not argue below, however, that she did not need
to comply with the demand letter requirement. We thus treat as
waived her newly raised argument about whether the exception to
the demand letter requirement applies. See Malave v. Carney Hosp.,
170 F.3d 217, 222 (1st Cir. 1999) ("[E]xcept in the most
extraordinary circumstances (not present here), matters not raised
in the trial court cannot be hawked for the first time on
appeal."). And, given that Dyer does not dispute that her
complaint failed to plead that she had sent a demand letter prior
to filing suit, we affirm the order dismissing Dyer's Chapter 93A
claim.
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IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the dismissal of
Dyer's claims.
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