Title: Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Girouard

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2015 ME 116 
Docket: 
And-14-467 
Submitted 
On Briefs: July 1, 2015 
Decided: 
August 18, 2015 
 
Panel: 
ALEXANDER, GORMAN, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ. 
 
 
WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A. 
 
v. 
 
ANTOINE A. GIROUARD et al. 
 
 
HJELM, J. 
[¶1]  After Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. commenced this action to foreclose on 
property owned by Antoine and Jessica Girouard, the Girouards moved for 
summary judgment, arguing that the statutorily mandated notice of default issued 
by Wells Fargo was defective.  Wells Fargo agreed with that contention, and the 
District Court (Lewiston, Lawrence, J.,) granted summary judgment to the 
Girouards but then, on Wells Fargo’s motion, issued an amended order granting 
summary judgment in part and simultaneously dismissing Wells Fargo’s complaint 
without prejudice.  On this appeal by the Girouards, they argue that the court erred 
by granting less than full summary judgment and by dismissing the foreclosure 
action without prejudice.  We agree and vacate the amended order of partial 
 
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summary judgment and dismissal, and we remand for reinstatement of the initial 
entry of full summary judgment in favor of the Girouards.  
I.  BACKGROUND 
[¶2]  Although, in an appeal from an order granting a motion for summary 
judgment, we ordinarily view the facts in the light most favorable to the 
nonprevailing party, see Allen v. McCann, 2015 ME 84, ¶ 8, --- A.3d ---, the facts 
of this case are not in dispute.  The Girouards own property located in Lewiston.  
In September 2004, they executed a note and mortgage deed in favor of a third 
party, and after several transactions, all rights created by the instruments were 
assigned to Wells Fargo.  In December 2012, Wells Fargo issued to the Girouards 
a notice of default and right to cure.  See 14 M.R.S. § 6111 (2014).  The notice 
informed the Girouards that, in order to cure the default, they were required to pay 
$8,848.81, “plus any additional monthly payments, late charges and other charges 
that may be due under applicable law after the date of [the] notice and on or before 
thirty-five (35) days from the date of [their] signed receipt of [the notice].”  When 
the Girouards failed to cure the default, Wells Fargo purported to accelerate the 
mortgage, and in July 2013 it initiated this action for foreclosure.    
[¶3]  More than a year later, on July 14, 2014, shortly after we issued our 
decision in Bank of Am., N.A. v. Greenleaf, the Girouards moved for summary 
judgment, arguing that the notice of default did not comply with section 6111 as 
 
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interpreted in Greenleaf.  See 2014 ME 89, ¶¶ 29-31, 96 A.3d 700 (holding that to 
comply with the statute, a notice of default must state the precise amount that the 
mortgagor must pay to cure the default, without allowing for accrual of any 
additional amount during the cure period).  Wells Fargo filed a “limited 
opposition” to the Girouards’ motion, agreeing that the demand letter did not meet 
the requirements of section 6111 and stating that “defendants’ Motion for 
Summary Judgment should be granted for failure to properly accelerate the loan 
and this matter dismissed without prejudice.”  In September 2014, the court 
granted the Girouards’ motion and entered summary judgment for them.  In the 
same order, however, the court also dismissed the foreclosure action without 
prejudice.   
[¶4]  The Girouards then filed three post-judgment motions: (1) a motion to 
correct a “clerical mistake,” see M.R. Civ. P. 60(a), in which they argued that the 
order dismissing the complaint was such an error; (2) a motion to alter or amend 
the judgment, see M.R. Civ. P. 59(e), so that it would constitute a summary 
judgment without reference to a dismissal of Wells Fargo’s complaint; and (3) a 
motion for findings of fact and conclusions of law, see M.R. Civ. P 52(a).  The 
court issued an amended order granting the motions in part, concluding that Wells 
Fargo had not complied with section 6111 as interpreted in Greenleaf because the 
notice of default did not state the precise amount of the payment needed to cure the 
 
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default.  The court relied on Dutil v. Burns, 1997 ME 1, 687 A.2d 639, and stated 
that a party’s failure to comply with a “statutory requirement” leaves the court 
without subject matter jurisdiction.  On this basis, the court amended its previous 
order so that summary judgment now was granted “in part”1 but that the 
foreclosure action was still “dismissed without prejudice.”   
[¶5]  From that amended order, the Girouards filed a timely appeal.2  
II.  DISCUSSION 
[¶6]  The Girouards contend that the court erred when it dismissed the 
foreclosure action and ultimately granted only partial summary judgment in their 
favor.  
[¶7]  The parties do not contest that the notice of default was insufficient 
pursuant to section 6111 and Greenleaf, 2014 ME 89, ¶¶ 29-31, 96 A.3d 700.  In 
Greenleaf, we enumerated the elements that, taken together, define a foreclosure 
claim and that a mortgagee therefore must prove in order to obtain a judgment of 
foreclosure.  Those elements include a proper notice of default.  Wells Fargo 
agreed that it would be unable to prove that necessary element of its substantive 
                                         
1  The court did not identify which parts of the claim were encompassed in the summary judgment. 
 
2  Although the Girouards appeal a summary judgment that was favorable to them, they nonetheless 
have standing because the amended summary judgment order was partial and was accompanied by a 
dismissal with terms that could have adverse collateral consequences in related future proceedings.  See 
Boston & Me. Corp. v. State Tax Assessor, 2005 ME 114, ¶ 7 n.3, 884 A.2d 1165; Great Cove Boat Club 
v. Bureau of Pub. Lands, 672 A.2d 91, 92 n.1 (Me. 1996). 
 
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claim.  This entitled the Girouards to a judgment on the claim itself, and not merely 
a dismissal of the complaint without prejudice. 
[¶8]  The court analogized this case to Dutil, where the plaintiff had not 
established the court’s subject matter jurisdiction over her medical negligence 
claim because she had not followed the statutory procedure that must precede 
commencement of such an action.  1997 ME 1, ¶ 7, 687 A.2d 639.  Regardless of 
its merit, Dutil’s action was barred because of her “failure to comply with the 
statutory prerequisites for maintaining” such a claim in the first place.  Id. ¶ 5.  
Here, on the other hand, the Girouards did not raise any issue about Wells Fargo’s 
compliance with procedural “prerequisites” to the foreclosure action.  Rather, they 
challenged the merits of Wells Fargo’s claim based on applicable statutory 
requirements, and that was the basis for the court’s order.3 
                                         
3  Wells Fargo mischaracterizes its failure of proof as a matter of standing.  None of the issues in this 
case implicates a question of Wells Fargo’s standing to pursue its foreclosure action.  Cf. Bank of Am., 
N.A. v. Greenleaf, 2014 ME 89, ¶¶ 9-12, 96 A.3d 700.  Rather, for the reasons set out in the text, the 
summary judgment process in this case established that Wells Fargo would be unable to prove the 
substantive foreclosure claim itself.  This differs from the predicate requirement that a putative mortgagee 
establish standing, which is a demonstration that that party holds the rights necessary to get through the 
courthouse door and pursue the claim in the first place. 
 
Similarly, the court’s order suggested that it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the 
foreclosure action because of the evidentiary deficiencies in Wells Fargo’s case that were exposed 
through the Girouards’ motion for summary judgment.  As we have recently reiterated, however, a party’s 
lack of standing is not a jurisdictional problem, but rather it is an issue of justiciability that precludes a 
party from invoking the court’s jurisdiction.  Homeward Residential Inc. v. Gregor, 2015 ME 108, 
¶¶ 15-20, --- A.3d ---; see 14 M.R.S. § 6321 (2014) (conferring jurisdiction on Maine’s trial courts to 
adjudicate foreclosure actions). 
 
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[¶9]  The court therefore correctly entered summary judgment for the 
Girouards 
because 
Wells 
Fargo’s 
entire 
claim 
was 
vitiated 
by 
its 
acknowledgement, which was supported by the record on summary judgment, that 
it would be unable to produce evidence on one of the necessary elements of its 
claim.  The judgment was not merely a dismissal of the action; it was a judgment 
on its merits.  Further, although the summary judgment adverse to Wells Fargo 
rested on only one of many necessary elements of the statutory cause of action, the 
judgment had the effect of disposing of the entire claim, and it is therefore not a 
judgment “in part.”4 
[¶10]  The parties spend considerable effort on appeal, as they did in the trial 
court, presenting their positions about the effect of the summary judgment order on 
any future action that Wells Fargo might initiate to seek the same relief based on 
the same rights.  Consideration of this issue is necessarily speculative, however, 
because, if the issue arises at all, it will be generated by events that have not yet 
happened and at present are entirely hypothetical.  Therefore, we do not address 
this issue, leaving it to another day if it becomes an actual controversy.  See 
Bar Harbor Banking & Trust Co. v. Alexander, 411 A.2d 74, 78 (Me. 1980).  
                                         
4  M.R. Civ. P. 56(d) authorizes a court to issue a partial summary judgment, which is a summary 
judgment on less than the “whole case” and which leaves other issues to be tried.  That is not the present 
situation, because although the court did not reach all of the elements of the foreclosure claim, its order 
had the effect of disposing of the entire case, leaving no issue or claim for trial.   
 
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[¶11]  We conclude that because the notice of default issued by Wells Fargo 
did not meet the applicable requirements of law, the court properly entered 
summary judgment in favor of the Girouards, but the court erred when it 
characterized the disposition of the claim as a dismissal.  We therefore vacate the 
court’s orders of partial summary judgment and dismissal of the foreclosure action, 
and we remand to the trial court for reinstatement of the entry of full summary 
judgment in favor of the Girouards. 
The entry is: 
The orders of dismissal and partial summary 
judgment are vacated.  Remanded for entry of full 
summary judgment for the Girouards. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On the briefs: 
 
Joshua Klein-Golden, Esq., Clifford & Golden, PA, Lisbon 
Falls, for appellant Antoine and Jessica Girouard 
 
Kevin P. Polansky, Esq., Nelson Mullins Riley Scarborough 
LLP, Boston, Massachusetts, for appellee Wells Fargo Bank, 
N.A. 
 
 
 
Lewiston District Court docket number RE-2013-135 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY