The U.S. Trustee's Office has recently filed a Post-Trial Brief in ongoing bankruptcy litigation in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Orleans, Louisiana in which it asks Judge Elizabeth W. Magner to hammer the alleged foreclosure document manufacturing racket management firm Lender Processing Services, Inc., f/k/a Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (“Fidelity”) with sanctions for allegedly:
- [p]ermitt[ing] its officer, Dory Goebel, to give materially misleading testimony to the Court on August 21, 2008, and should be sanctioned. It is undisputed that important parts of Goebel’s testimony were untrue; the crux of the matter now is determining Fidelity’s level of culpability. The evidence proves that, at a minimum, Fidelity acted with indifference to the truth in permitting Goebel to give the misleading testimony. (See U.S. Trustee's Post-Trial Brief In Lieu Of Closing Argument, at page 1.)
In the following excerpt, U.S. Trustee describes to Judge Magner what it thinks of Fidelity (bold text is my emphasis) (Post-trial brief, at p. 21-22):
- Fidelity operated an affidavit-execution process that systematically caused the execution of false affidavits. That Fidelity considered this a valuable service to its clients is made manifest in an article co-authored by Ms. Goebel appearing in Fidelity’s corporate newsletter The Summit. In the article, published in September, 2006, Fidelity trumpeted the efficiency and benefits that its “document execution” process offered to servicer clients. Trial Ex. 17.
The Fidelity affidavits were false because, per Fidelity’s procedures, its affiant-employees: 1) did not sign in the presence of notaries; 2) did not take any steps to obtain personal knowledge of the averments contained in the affidavits; and 3) falsely represented the contrary, within the affidavits themselves, as to possession of requisite personal knowledge. Fidelity officers Scott Walter and Ms. Goebel testified in complete agreement that Ms. Goebel would not have executed her affidavit in the presence of a notary, and that Ms. Goebel would have obeyed Fidelity’s procedures in that respect. December 1 Tr. 246:6-12, 337:5-22, 332:3-4.
Mr. Walter and Ms. Goebel also testified in complete agreement that Goebel would not have gained personal knowledge about the averments in her affidavit and, again, that Goebel’s execution of the affidavit without gaining personal knowledge would have been in compliance with Fidelity’s procedures in that respect. December 1 Tr. 248:1-8, 342:21-343:3. Logically, thus, Fidelity expected its affiants to swear, falsely, that they had gained that personal knowledge.
The U.S. Trustee's brief then goes on to give a damning example of this alleged misconduct.(1)
For more, see In re Wilson - U.S. Trustee's Post-Trial Brief (filed February 1, 2011).
(1) In bankruptcy litigation unconnected to this case, the following excerpt from a December, 2010 Reuters story (see Special report: Legal woes mount for a foreclosure kingpin) reports on Lender Processing Services (f/k/a Fidelity National Information Services) getting into a Pennsylvania bankruptcy judge's cross-hairs because of its business practices in connection with foreclosure actions:
- In an April 2009 court decision, Diane Weiss Sigmund, a federal bankruptcy judge in Philadelphia, specifically faulted lawyers whose firm filed LPS-transmitted documents in court using clerical workers to sign the name of a lawyer who hadn't looked at them. In that case, it turned out that, contrary to the documents supplied via the LPS system, the homeowners weren't in default on their mortgage.
Referring to the LPS computer system, the judge stated, "the flaws in this automated process become apparent." She added: "An attorney must cease processing files and act like a lawyer."
Judge Sigmund, in In re Taylor, Case No. 07-15385-DWS (Bankr. E.D. Pa., April 15, 2009), had to deal with numerous document and communications screwups because of the business model used by LPS, and which led her to make the observation that the case before her was "a textbook example of why the [LPS] procedures used by HSBC and its counsel in the name of minimizing collection costs is so problematic."
Judge Sigmund concluded her 58-page opinion in her 2009 ruling with this parting shot at Lender Processing Services, Inc., f/k/a Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. and the foreclosure mill law firms they hop into bed with:
- At issue in these cases are the homes of poor and unfortunate debtors, more and more of whom are threatened with foreclosure due to the historic job loss and housing crisis in this country. Congress, in its wisdom, has fashioned a bankruptcy law which balances the rights and duties of debtors and creditors. Chapter 13 is a rehabilitative process with a goal of saving the family home. The thoughtless mechanical employment of computer·driven models and communications to inexpensively traverse the path to foreclosure offends the integrity of our American bankruptcy system. It is for those involved in the process to step back and assess how they can fulfill their professional obligations and responsibly reap the benefits of technology. Nothing less should be tolerated.
In the current case, I am interested to see how far Judge Magner goes beyond the level of excoriation Judge Sigmund dished out when hammering LPS/Fidelity.
