Legal News

Sixth Circuit Rebuffs Foreclosed Pro Se Litigant

By Amir Efrati

Our last post on Richard Davet, the Cleveland-area pro se litigant who staved off a foreclosure lawsuit for 11 years without making a mortgage payment — and whose story recently landed on Page One of WSJ — produced some strongly-worded comments on the state of our legal system and the nationwide foreclosure crisis.

Here’s an update on “perhaps the most notorious foreclosure case in U.S. history,” to quote the bio of one lawyer who was involved: last week the Sixth Circuit again declined to hear Davet’s case, even after he filed a motion showing recent court rulings that buttress his initial arguments in the case.

Davet’s next stop: The Supremes, and he is considering other unspecified alternatives.

His argument: Because his mortgage company, now part of Bank of America, didn’t actually own his loan until three years into the litigation, it didn’t have standing to come before the court as the plaintiff. BofA has said the state and district courts’ decisions affirmed the company’s right to foreclose.

Davet, who was evicted from his beloved six-bedroom home (pictured) last year, told the Law Blog he is determined as ever to reverse the original state-court decision, which he called “void ab initio.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).