"Rocket Docket" rushing foreclosures, lawyers say
10/11/2010 © Florida Times-Union
By Roger Bull
The cases go quickly through the conference room on the fifth floor of the Duval
County Courthouse. That's where a special foreclosure court has been set up to hear
foreclosures and nothing but.
With 15,000 open foreclosure cases in Duval County, it's staffed by retired judges with
a goal of resolving 25 cases an hour, leading some critics to label it the "Rocket Docket," and
there are harsher descriptions as well. "The fundamental problem," said Chip Parker, an attorney who specializes in foreclosure defense, "is that for the first time, this court was created with the specific goal of reducing foreclosures 62 percent."
"If they find for the defendant, the plaintiffs [usually lenders] just refile," he said. "The
only way to reduce [the case load] is to give it to the plaintiff. It's designed with a result in mind, and that's not how justice is supposed to work."
With millions of Americans facing foreclosure, much of the foreclosure process itself is
in well-publicized disarray. At least seven states are investigating allegations of wrongdoing
involving bogus signatures and missing documents.
On Friday, Bank of America announced that it was stopping foreclosures in all 50
states after evidence that employees and lawyers signed documents without verifying them.
JP Morgan Chase & Co and Ally Financial have stopped foreclosure proceedings in some states
after similar evidence surfaced.
Several cases have been tossed out by Florida judges who found fraud. Duval Circuit
Judge Jean Johnson declared that one South Florida law firm under investigation, Shapiro &
Fishman, had "committed fraud on this court" on behalf of Chase. She dismissed the case in
August, finding in favor of Parker's client, because of fraudulent documents.
"We have not encountered any fraud yet," said Judge A.C. Soud who is in charge of
the newly created foreclosure division. "If we encountered fraud, it would go to [State
Attorney] Angela Corey, I can tell you that."
The special foreclosure courts that began operating July 1 are funded by $9.6 million
budgeted by the state Legislature.
In the Fourth Circuit, four judges rotate in Jacksonville, one at a time working a fourday week. Clay and Nassau counties each have one judge working two days a week.
So far, they have been losing ground: There were 12,104 open cases in Duval County
on July 1, now there are 15,088. But Soud said the court started slowly because banks were
not ready to proceed in July.
But now, with all the questions, Soud said plaintiffs are now cancelling their hearings,
including 40 to 50 that had been set for Thursday, to verify their documentation.
Starting in January, Soud plans to add a second judge for two days a week in
Jacksonville and reduce the staffing in Clay and Nassau to just one day a week.
The goal, Soud said, is to resolve 25 cases per hour, which includes uncontested cases
which make up 98 percent of them. Usually, it's lawyers who come to the conference to
present their motions, but occasionally, a homeowner comes to represent himself.
The court, like other foreclosure courts in Florida, has harsh critics among some of the
attorneys who make regular appearances.
Parker said that in the three years before the foreclosure court was established, his
firm participated in about 100 hearings for a contested final summary judgment and never lost
one. With the new court, they are 1-for-15, winning their first last week in Clay County.
"For the first time, they're not even pretending to be unbiased arbiters of justice," Parker said.
Mark Kessler, who is in the Duval County foreclosure court almost every day representing plaintiffs/lenders, disagreed.
"I take great issue with some of those comments," he said. "These judges are extremely fair. It's not like it's a steamroller, they pay close attention to each of the cases."
Victoria McNair, an attorney with Three Rivers Legal Services won a case for her client last week - the foreclosure was dismissed. She and Parker think it's the first one that's been dismissed since the court began in July.
"They're under a lot of political pressure to move so many cases so fast," she said. "There's
the sheer volume of having to deal with all the stuff these foreclosure mills have filed. And the law is changing so fast, maybe some of these judges need some learning curve time.
"If they've been out [off the bench] for more than three years, they've missed all the
changes in the foreclosure law."
At the heart of the foreclosure controversy are the affidavits that the plaintiffs file
which says who owns the note, how much money is owed, etc. Employees at several major
lenders have admitted signing the affidavits without confirming the information was correct.
"The foreclosure mills take these cases by the thousands," McNair said, "and they do it
by cutting all the corners and all the laws. When they file these things, they're all defective.
They just don't have the elements that law requires." Among Parker's concerns is that affidavits are routinely accepted in foreclosure court without the supporting records to show that they're correct.
"I really believe we're subverting the rule of law for the convenience of clearing the
docket," he said "There is clearly a second set of rules being followed by the foreclosure judges."
But Soud said that's not true, and that the required records are included.
"What we have is affidavits that are attached and filed in these hearings that are signed by people who are custodians of the records," he said.
"We're following the law as we understand it," he said. "We're just not doing it the way
they think it should be done. If they don't like it, that's what the First District Court of Appeals in Tallahassee is for."
While most of the business in the courtroom is done by lawyers, homeowners do show up.
Wednesday, Robert E. Lee came in with a stack of medical records to explain why he
hadn't made the payments on his house since 2008. On disability, the 59-year-old retired
railroad worker had been in the hospital five times in the past two years. And he knew he'd
overpaid when he agreed to pay $90,000 for his house off Kings Road near Edward Waters
College when it was appraised at half that.
But after the deaths of his wife and daughter, he really wanted to be in a neighborhood where he had so many relatives. That's what he said he wanted to explain to Judge Aaron Bowden.
"I didn't get a chance to tell him anything," Lee said. "I tried to tell him what was going on and he told me to stop whining. He gave me until Dec. 2 and that's enough time for me to find a place to stay."
roger.bull@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4296.
