725,000 judgment against Wells Fargo for Misapplying $2,212 Mortgage Payment
Below is a story of an attorney that has been battling the banks on behalf of many Northern Nevada homeowners for several years. His first experience with the banksters’ egregious conduct towards borrowers began in September 2004 and resulted in a $725K judgment against Wells Fargo Bank. The judgment was entered in April 2009 and is currently being appealed for the second time.
After almost 3 years of litigation, an internal electronic office memorandum dated on or about May 2005 contained an admission from Wells Fargo that it had mistakenly applied the mortgage payment to the wrong account and that it should correct its error. However, Wells Fargo refused to correct its admitted error and has began a campaign trying to wear down and outlast his client. A campaign that began in September 2004 when it first misapplied his client’s mortgage payment (”$2200″). The action was filed in the federal district Court of Northern Nevada in May 2005 and was finally agreed to submit the matter to binding arbitration in January 2009.
An arbitration award was issued in February 2009 and I moved for an award of attorney’s fees and costs in the amount of about $500,000. In Wells Fargo’s opposition to the fee application, it admitted that “plaintiff’s fees and costs pale in comparison to the fees it paid.” Regardless the arbitrator award all of my client’s fees and costs. Wells Fargo then moved to have the arb award vacated pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act in the district court. The district court refused to rule on its motion because the parties’ stipulation to proceed to binding arbitration was with the understanding that the losing party would appeal the award directly to the 9th Circuit.
In August 2009, Wells Fargo appealed the arbitration award. In February, 2011, the 9th Circuit remanded the motion back to the district court with instructions to rule on the motion. On August 17, 2011, the district court issued its memorandum of decision and order denying Wells Fargo’s motion. And, despite the standard for vacating an arbitration award being next to impossible to meet, Wells Fargo filed another appeal to the 9th Circuit on or about September 10, 2011.
The following is a summary of the attached award and findings of fact by the arbitrator, retired California Appellate Court Justice Michael Nott.
This dispute arose out of Wells Fargo inadvertently applying Johnson’s $2,212.00 September 2004 mortgage payment to the wrong mortgage account. Despite Wells Fargo having discovered and admitting its mistake on or about May 2005, Wells Fargo refuses to this very day, October 11, 2011 (over 7 years later), to remedy its admitted wrong doing and continues to employ 2 expensive law firms to employ expensive delaying tactics to postpone the inevitable payment of the arbitration award.
Retired California Appellate Court Justice Michael Nott after 3 1/2 days of trial and reviewing all the evidence and testimony presented by the Parties concluded that despite Wells Fargo having eventually admitted that it had been wrong all along, Wells Fargo refused to correct its error. In an overview of all the evidence presented, he concluded that this matter should have never taken so long to resolve. It just wasn’t complicated and, more poignantly, the evidence is overwhelming that Johnson provided sufficient documentary proof to back his assertion from Day 1 that all appropriate payments had been made to Loans 55 and 56. Id. In his final analysis, Justice Nott concluded that there wasn’t any reason to rush to reporting any negative comments to the CRAs (after the first report) until the problem was finally resolved. Justice Nott noted that Wells Fargo was servicing 8 of Johnson’s other mortgage loans and did not have to report any of them delinquent.
Justice Nott’s ultimate conclusion was that on the face of the documents presented at trial by Johnson, the investigation by Wells Fargo was inadequate, unreasonable, and untimely under the rules of the FCRA. Further, the yoyo reporting and clearing of late payments from October through May, and the continued foreclosure proceedings on Loan 56 were unnecessary and improper.
Johnson was awarded $260,910 including the attorney’s fees and costs he incurred from September 2004 through the end of the arbitration on or about February 2009. Almost 4 1/2 years of litigation that included, but not limited to, trips to California, North Carolina, and Iowa. Attorney fees awarded were $427,739, and cost in the amount of $37,069.
The attorney on the case is:
Tory M. Pankopf
TORY M. PANKOPF, LTD.
A Foreclosure Defense Law Firm
10471 Double R Blvd., Suite C
Reno, Nevada 89521
Tel. (775) 384-6956
Fax (775) 384-6958
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Below are copies of the: 1) arb award; 2) amended arb award; 3) order confirming award and judgment; 4) 9th Circuit Opinion; and 5) memorandum of decision and order denying.
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4closureFraud.org
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Judgment and Order Re Arb Award
I am happy to see they got caught!!!!……Wells Fargo was just comandeering another Nazi tactic for the NWO ….to try and steal another home they do not own….and never did. Wells Fargo stole my brother in laws townhome….they committed a ton of fraud on his recordings after they stole it too….Damned Nazi collaberators…!!
Again????!!! When will Wells learn? They keep making the same mistakes over and over. You would have thought that by now they would have cleaned up their act.
….why Alina……which one of these conspiratory banks has…….cleaned up their act?
….and they ain’t mistakes…..just crooked lies……
The trolls are coming out of the woodwork Rob!!!….LOOKS LIKE FRAUDCLOSUREGATE IS LOSING STEAM…TIME FOR SOME ACCOUNTABLITY….MISTAKES…HA! CLEAN UP THEIR ACT…HOW?….WITH MORE FRAUD? THE PONZI SCHEME IS STILL GOING ON TO THIS DAY…I HEARD A RADIO REPORT…THEY ARE ALL STILL CONTINUING THE EXACT SAME FRAUD TO THIS VERY DAY…THEY ARE ALL SICKO’S ROB…ADDICTED TO MORTGAGE FRAUD AND PONZI SCHEMES……THEY NEED TO GO TO PRISON…ALL OF THEM…
It may very well be that they can’t clean up their act. They’ve run their businesses as sting operations for so long that they probably don’t even have the documentation, systems or skilled personnel around anymore to operate in an honest manner. My across the street neightbor used to work doing mortgage application audits. She decided to stay home with her kids 7 years ago when she saw the unadulterated crap that wasbeginning to come through the office and couldn’t get her supervisors to support her.
Lots of honest, knowledgeable, intelligent, educated people like her were eased/pushed out and folks without their qualifications or abilities were brought in. They were both cheaper and a whole lot easier to push around when illegal practices started to permeate the entire business.
This gives new meaning to the Wells Fargo logo, “Together we’ll go far”
So Wells Fargo applied his payment to the wrong account and then went into foreclosure against this guy, admits they made a mistake, and then says So What?
I don’t get it!
Common sense would dictate that you credit the right account and drop foreclosure proceedings and send an apology. Wells Fargo’s slimeballs are probably costing them $2122 AN HOUR!
Go figure.
…….they just look and dress differently……..