Minor v. The Bank of New York Mellon
- Robert Illman
- 1:19-cv-08151
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Minor v. The Bank of New York Mellon, Judge Alsup denied Evette Minor’s temporary restraining order seeking to stop foreclosure, without deciding foreclosure’s validity.
Evette Minor’s request to temporarily stop the foreclosure was denied; the order did not determine whether the foreclosure was ultimately valid.
What happened
In Minor v. The Bank of New York Mellon, Evette Minor asked the federal court to temporarily stop a scheduled foreclosure sale involving a $92,000 home-equity loan. She argued that the lender and loan servicer had miscalculated interest and that the foreclosure notices were therefore invalid.
The court found that Minor had not shown a sufficient chance of success on that theory. It also noted that she had made no loan payments since 2008 and had not shown that any alleged interest error affected her ability or willingness to cure the default.
Judge Alsup denied the temporary restraining order. He emphasized that the ruling was narrow and did not approve the foreclosure or decide whether the defendants had ultimately acted improperly.
The detailed version
- Minor v. The Bank of New York Mellon · No. 1:19-cv-08151
- Robert Illman
- Dec. 27, 2019
Background
Evette Minor borrowed $92,000 in 2005 through a home-equity line of credit secured by a deed of trust on real property in Santa Rosa, California. The loan had a variable interest rate tied to the Wall Street Journal prime rate plus a 3.95% margin. Minor stopped making payments in January 2008.
Minor later filed two Chapter 13 bankruptcy cases. In the second case, the bankruptcy court confirmed a repayment plan after relieving the defendants from the automatic stay and expressly authorizing them to enforce their rights in the property. The defendants recorded a notice of default in February 2019. After negotiations over a loan modification failed, they recorded a notice of trustee’s sale and scheduled the sale for November 25, 2019.
Minor filed this action in state court shortly before the scheduled sale and obtained a temporary restraining order there. After removal to federal court, she filed an amended complaint asserting eight claims. The amended complaint alleged, among other things, that the defendants had miscalculated interest, making the foreclosure notices invalid. Minor then applied for another temporary restraining order.
Analysis
A temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction requires a showing that the plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits, likely to suffer irreparable harm without relief, that the balance of equities favors relief, and that an injunction would serve the public interest. A showing of serious questions on the merits may sometimes suffice when the balance of hardships strongly favors the plaintiff, but the plaintiff must still show likely irreparable injury and that an injunction serves the public interest.
The court concluded that Minor had not raised even serious questions about the merits of her defective-notice theory. California law may allow a foreclosure sale to be stopped when the underlying notice of default is defective. But Minor did not dispute that she had failed to pay principal, interest, and late charges, and she did not argue or provide evidence that she could have cured the default without the allegedly miscalculated interest.
The court also found that Minor had not clearly shown that the amounts in the foreclosure notices were wrong. Her declaration did not state that the default amounts were incorrect, distinguish interest from principal and other charges, or establish the interest rate used in the November 2019 payoff statement. The court further noted that she provided no evidence that the alleged interest calculations affected her willingness or ability to pay. Given the dispute’s history and Minor’s failure to make payments since 2008, the court found that the balance of equities did not favor her.
Disposition
Judge William Alsup denied the application for a temporary restraining order. The court stated that the decision was narrow, did not approve or bless the foreclosure, and would not prevent Minor from attempting to prove at trial that the defendants had erred.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.