The administrative order is now before the Supreme Court and no hearing date has been set. Rules that affect courtroom procedures require greater review, including comments from local lawyers and a Supreme Court examination. The decision by the local rules committee essentially said the judges’ orders had exceeded their authority, because administrative orders are reserved for issues related to running the court system and not to legal proceedings. “If this is examined out in the light, I think the overall legal community will reject this hands down,” he said. That particular rule, however, was an egregious overreach that would not be tolerated in legal cases outside of foreclosure, Ice said. The judicial order to abandon motions was designed to prevent homeowners and banks from purposely delaying cases with endless motions. Homeowners and defense lawyers said the result is a system in which judges regularly rule in favor of mortgage lenders, granting them leeway on rules of evidence and extensions when they don’t show up for trials and hearings - latitudes that aren’t typically granted to borrowers. The state set a goal of clearing 256,000 cases a year for three years.
The state Supreme Court tracks how many cases have been heard, how many have been cleared and issues monthly reports detailing the progress of each judicial circuit. Many counties set up separate courtrooms and hired retired judges to hear cases. The courtrooms operate under rules that differ from those that guide civil law in other types of cases.Ĭhief judges across the state issued orders on how to deal with foreclosure cases. The state set up a parallel legal system in which judges hear only foreclosure cases - often more than 100 motions per day. The Center for Public Integrity reported earlier this year that Florida’s legislature and Supreme Court have instructed judges across the state to clear what they say is a critical backlog of foreclosure cases from the court system.
“I’m going to wave my judicial wand and they are all gone.” “What they’re saying is you don’t have to hear those motions, just deny them,” said Thomas Ice, a Royal Palm Beach lawyer who took his opposition to the orders to the Supreme Court’s committee as well as to two state appeals courts. Other Florida counties have similar orders in place. The effect is that homeowners who ask judges to dismiss their cases, or disallow evidence, will automatically lose if the bank trying to foreclose doesn’t respond to the motion.
The committee referred the rule to the state Supreme Court for review.Īt issue is an order by the chief judge in Palm Beach County, and an accompanying order from a foreclosure judge, that deems a motion in a foreclosure case abandoned, essentially expired, if it hasn’t been heard within 90 days. The Court’s Local Rules Advisory Committee said last week that a judge’s order in Palm Beach County that allows banks to defeat homeowners’ motions to fight foreclosures in court simply by ignoring them went beyond the judge’s authority. Photo: Alison Fitzgerald/Center for Public Integrityįlorida homeowners may soon find a more friendly reception in the state’s courtrooms after a state Supreme Court panel found that some judicial practices designed to speed up foreclosure cases may be improper.
Lawyers wait to sign in for foreclosure hearings at the Palm Beach County Courthouse in West Palm Beach in July.