JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Syed

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 129

Syllabus

The defendant appeals from the judgment of strict foreclosure rendered by the trial court in favor of the second substitute plaintiff, W Co. The defendant initially executed the mortgage in favor of M Co.; J Co. then assigned the mortgage to itself, commenced this action, and thereafter filed a motion to substitute C Co. as the plaintiff. C Co. filed a motion for summary judgment as to liability, and the defendant opposed the motion, claiming that the note, which was endorsed in blank by M Co., was endorsed falsely by R, a former employee of the relevant department of M Co., who did not actually sign the note but, rather, someone else signed R's name or used a signature stamp bearing R's signature on the endorsement. The trial court granted C Co.'s motion for summary judgment as to liability and subsequently rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on her claim that the trial court improperly granted summary judgment as to liability, which was based on her claim that there were genuine issues of material fact concerning whether J Co. was the holder of the note at the time it commenced this action due to an invalid endorsement of the note by M Co.: the defendant's claim that, because the purported signature was not R's signature it was not an endorsement at all, was inconsistent with the broad definition of signature under the applicable statute (§ 42a-3-401 (b)), and the defen- dant did not dispute that the endorsement stamp was placed on the note by someone affiliated with M Co., the name of a former employee fell within the definition of § 42a-3-401 (b), and the fact that M Co. chose to use a stamp bearing the signature of a former employee was of no import to the analysis under § 42a-3-401 (b), which pertains to a bank's rights and obligations related to the note, rather than to one of the bank's former employees; accordingly, the stamped signature met the signature requirements for negotiable instruments and, because th