Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC v. Sheldon
Citations
- 208 Conn. App. 132
Syllabus
The plaintiff, O Co., sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendants, S and J. S and J originally signed a promissory note to G Co., secured by a mortgage on the property, and further agreed to participate in a ''bisaver program,'' through which they made a payment to G Co. every two weeks via a direct withdrawal by G Co. from S's checking account. G Co. ceased withdrawing payments in 2008, and reported S and J, who had neither requested nor authorized the cessation, as delinquent to several credit reporting agencies, which severely damaged S and J's credit. S and J thereafter reached an oral agreement with G Co., pursuant to which G Co. agreed to ''restore'' their credit. G Co. did not restore their credit, S and J ceased to make additional payments, and G Co. resumed reporting S and J as delinquent to the credit agencies. Subsequently, G Co. assigned the note to O Co. S and J asserted several special defenses to the foreclosure action, including unclean hands. Thereafter, P Co. was substituted as the plain- tiff. The trial court concluded that S and J had satisfied their burden of proof on their special defense of unclean hands and rendered judgment in their favor, finding that they had equitable title to the property. On P Co.'s appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court's finding that G Co. did not restore S and J's credit was not clearly erroneous: the court credited J's testimony that G Co. never sent letters to the credit reporting agencies in order to correct its error and restore S and J's credit, which supported the finding that G Co. did not restore their credit, and the court was not required to credit evidence submitted by P Co., including three letters that P Co. claimed demon- strated that G Co. had restored S and J's credit; moreover, this court declined to review P Co.'s unpreserved claim that the court relied on J's testimony in contravention of the best evidence rule, as P Co. did not object to J's testimony th
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- noting that any presumptive prejudice due to passage of time was extenuated by defendant’s acquiescence to delay
- noting that neutral reasons for delay, like crowded dockets, weigh against State but do so less heavily than deliberate delay by State
- assigning a neutral value to a delay where both parties were “equally blameworthy”
- where both parties were “equally blameworthy for a period of delay, the reasons-for-delay factor is essentially neutral”
- “Delay caused by the defense weighs against the defendant.” (citing Brillon, 556 U.S. at 90)
- “excessive delay presumptively compromises the reliability of a trial in ways that neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Bright; Alexander; Suarez
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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