Discovery on Defendants Well Applied in a California Lawsuit

Today we discsus on the Show the California case of Bienfeld, et al. v. Ditech Financial, LLC, et al. This case involves as a Defendant Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM), the purported Trustee of a securitized trust at the heart of the lawsuit. While Ditech itself is in bankruptcy protection in a Chapter 11 in New York State, its co-defendant here BNYM is not covered by any potential bk automatic stay. A pending motion for summary judgment has been continued as the Judge here has partially sided with Plaintiffs to compel Defendant BNYM to provide further and genuine responses to the following issues: chain of title re the subject loan; the transfer, sale, and purchase of the loan; the relationship between the trust beneficiary and its agents/loan servicers, etc. Critical to the Judge's order here is the viewing of evidence related to these matters being so critical that the motion for summary judgment was continued to enable Plaintiffs to seek such evidence to more adequately respond to the MSJ itself. One other interesting wrinkle to this case: The demand and the providing of (here, apparently illegitimate) Certifications of Trustee, which certifications are just that, certifications that the mortgage note at issue is in fact legally part of the securitized trust with which it is supposed to be associated.