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Case Summaries

Banking Law

[02/10] In re McCormick
In bankruptcy proceedings in which a bank sought repayment of a loan that it claimed was secured by a deed of trust on two contiguous parcels of the debtor's property, the lower courts' order that the bank's lien on one of the parcels was avoided is affirmed, where: 1) the deed was unrecorded as to that parcel; 2) the bankruptcy trustee was only imputed with the notice of the deed that would be imputed to a bona fide purchaser of the tract under state law; and 2) North Carolina law allowed a purchaser to rely exclusively on the official recordation index of the county to discover liens, regardless of what other independent knowledge that purchaser might have.

[02/08] McOmie-Gray v. Bank of America Home Loans
In a borrower's suit seeking rescission of her loan secured by a trust deed with a bank for alleged violations of disclosure requirements under the federal Truth in Lending Act, the district court's grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is affirmed, where the claim for rescission was brought more than three years after the consummation of the loan secured by the first trust deed, so that the three-year statute of repose, 15 USC section 1635(f), required dismissal, regardless of when the borrower sent notice of rescission.

[02/06] Duran v. U.S. Bank NA
In a wage and hour class action brought by current and former business banking officers who claimed they were misclassified by the defendant bank as outside sales personnel exempt from California's overtime laws, and were thus unlawfully denied overtime pay, the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is reversed, where: 1) the trial plan erroneously relied on representative sampling and thus violated the bank's right to due process of law; 2) the trial court's refusal to allow the bank to introduce evidence to challenge the claims of certain class members violated its due process rights; 3) the statistical sampling methods, with their 43.3 percent margin of error, produced results so unreliable as to render the judgment unconstitutional; and 4) the trial court erred in denying a motion to decertify the class.

[02/01] GECCMC 2005-C1 Plummer Street Office L.P. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.
In a suit alleging breach of lease agreements that the defendant bank assumed after it purchased a failed bank's assets and liabilities from the FDIC pursuant to the terms of a written purchase and assumption agreement, the district court's grant of the bank's motion to dismiss is affirmed, where under federal common law, the plaintiff lacked standing to bring suit under the agreement because it was not an intended third-party beneficiary of the agreement.

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