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Bank of America seeks to dismiss racketeering suit

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Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit brought by foreclosed homeowners who accuse it of racketeering.

Dwayne Ransom Davis and Melisa Davis sued last month in Indianapolis, claiming Bank of America “routinely” submitted perjured affidavits to support foreclosures. They lost their Knightstown home last year.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, in papers filed Wednesday with U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson, said the Davises were improperly using a federal court to attack a state court proceeding and hadn’t shown they were injured.

“While plaintiffs claim they do not seek to overturn the judgment in the foreclosure action, it is clear they are trying to do precisely that,” in violation of federal law, Bank of America told the court.

The Davises didn’t ask the court to reverse their September 2009 foreclosure. They said in their complaint that the use of “robo-signers,” or people who sign affidavits attesting to facts underlying foreclosures without actual knowledge of them, constitutes racketeering.

They seek class-action, or group, status for anyone whose home was taken under such circumstances since October 2006, and compensatory damages, which would be tripled under U.S. racketeering laws.

“Plaintiffs plead no facts to support their claim that the result, i.e. a judgment of foreclosure, would have been any different had the alleged inaccuracies in the underlying affidavit been discovered in the state court proceeding,” Bank of America said.

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  • show the note
    Shouldn't they be telling BoA to produce the note to show legal standing to foreclose? if they have no legal standing and foreclosed anyway, that's harm caused because those people still owe a debt to someone but now have no property for collateral.
  • Dismissal
    Why would the attorney file that case in federal court? Anyone who knows anything about the federal and state courts knows that the feds dismiss cases at the drop of a hat and get involved with weighing facts at the summary judgment stage when they shouldn't. Only about 20% of federal cases make it beyond summary judgment. JMS is a particularly bad judge to boot. She is very anti-plaintiff, especially when there are deep-pocket defendants which hire big law firms. That case should have been filed in state court

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  1. these guys only skill was to steal from other's hard earned savings.

  2. I voted for him last time and it WAS the LAST time. He needed to to quit running around the world on useless trips, and giving our $$ away to sports teams. I'll vote for anyone but Ballard next time. BTW...we gave $40M to the Pacers and cannot even watch the games on TV.

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  5. Good ole' Obamacare. Thanks liberals and those who didn't bother to vote.

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