A circuit court judge in Palm Beach County, Florida, has been asked to recuse herself from a current foreclosure case due to the claims by the defense counsel that she is a big stakeholder in the moving party's profit margin, as well as a shareholder in other mortgage and foreclosure related entities.
No one has offered proof of any shenanigans on the Judge's part and there are no indications that any decisions she's reached have been affected. Impartiality is paramount in a court of law and this motion screams for sunshine and clarity.
Matt Weidner Law Blog reveals the information in an article extolling the efforts of the Ice Legal team in Palm Beach County... here's a slice:
Far and above the finest, most aggressive and most principled foreclosure lawyers in this state are the attorneys working at Ice Legal in West Palm Beach, Florida. Next to the nationally respected pioneer in foreclosure defense, April Charney from Jacksonville Legal Aid, no single group of lawyers has done more to advance the cause of foreclosure defense and to protect the core and substantive rights of consumers than Tom Ice and the fantastic lawyers he has working with him.
http://mattweidnerlaw.com/...
The Ice Legal folks deserve some additional recognition and are sure to get some additional publicity when the media picks up their latest motion...:
From the court filing: http://mattweidnerlaw.com/...
Because the Fifteenth Circuit groups all foreclosure cases in a single division, all the cases in the division involve the same subject matter (the confiscation of real property) and all are brought by a relatively small number of banking industry plaintiffs. As the judge presiding over this division, Judge Sasser is in the unique position wherein billions of dollars of assets sought by a handful of plaintiffs are subject to her decisions. Since the structure of the division affords Judge Sasser the ability to exercise her influence over thousands of cases brought by individual plaintiffs, so too must the potential affect of “the proceedings” be measured.
Coupled with the fact that Judge Sasser has such a substantial sum of her own savings invested in the entities (or symbiotically related entities) which appear on only one side of her cases, a rational basis exists for questioning whether she can be impartial. No judge should be permitted to continue to preside over cases where such a cloud of impartiality hangs over the entire division.
With over 50,000 current mortgage foreclosures cases in the County, it is well known in courtroom circles that efforts are under way to push substantial amounts of cases through the system in record time, and while we always hope the Judge to be impartial, cases like these are worrisome.
From a Palm Beach Post article last month:
Meanwhile, the backlog of foreclosures in the county stands at about 53,500 - 1,500 fewer than earlier this year.
"I am literally working night and day on these," said Judge Meenu Sasser, who heads the foreclosure division for the 15th Judicial Circuit . The district includes Palm Beach County. "I'm hopeful that by the end of 2010, a significant portion of the backlog will be cleared."
How many other Jurists throughout the land may have a vested interest in cases placed on their dockets?
...not only does Judge Sasser have a substantial stake in the outcome of all her
BoA cases, but directly or indirectly—through her ownership interest of Bank of New York Mellon, her ownership interest in a company that maintains foreclosure information for foreclosure plaintiffs and their servicers, her ownership of mutual funds invested in banking industry stock and mortgage backed securities, and her business dealings with BlackRock, the manager of the Maiden Lane toxic mortgage assets—she has a stake in the outcome in nearly all the cases before her.
Ice Legal provides a snapshot of the investments in question.
Judge Sasser’s investments that may be impinged by the outcome of cases in her division
are:
Bank of America Corporation
$ 25,820.00
Bank of New York Mellon
$ 5,369.10
BlackRock Global Allocation C (mutual funds)
$206,332.13
BlackRock High Income Shares (mutual funds)
$ 10,550.00
Fiserv, Inc.
$ 3,882.75
Davis NY Venture C (mutual fund)
$132,955.67
Pioneer Strategic Income C (mutual fund)
$ 40,153.85
TOTAL
$425,063.50