Title: Brown v. Federal National Mortgage Ass’n

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-12583 
 
DEBRA BROWN  vs.  FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION. 
 
 
February 11, 2019. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.  
Practice, Civil, Standing. 
 
 
 
The petitioner, Debra Brown, appeals from a judgment of a 
single justice of this court denying her petition pursuant to 
G. L. c. 211, § 3.  We affirm.   
 
 
The respondent, Federal National Mortgage Association 
(FNMA), acquired title to Brown's home following a foreclosure 
sale in May 2010.  Shortly thereafter, and stemming from the 
foreclosure, Brown commenced an action against FNMA and Bank of 
America Corporation (the mortgage servicer at the time of the 
foreclosure) in the Superior Court.  FNMA and Bank of America 
Corporation removed the action to the United States District 
Court for the District of Massachusetts.  A judge in that court 
dismissed the action, and, after Brown appealed, the United 
States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the 
dismissal.  Brown's subsequent petition for a writ of certiorari 
was denied by the United States Supreme Court in October 2012.  
In the meantime, in September 2012, FNMA commenced a summary 
process action against Brown in the Housing Court.  In October 
2015, judgment entered in that court in favor of FNMA.  Brown 
appealed.  The Appeals Court affirmed the judgment, and this 
court denied Brown's subsequent application for further 
appellate review.  See Federal Nat'l Mtge. Ass'n v. Brown, 91 
Mass. App. Ct. 1122, S.C., 478 Mass. 1108 (2017).   
 
 
More recently, in May and June of 2018, Brown filed several 
new motions in the Housing Court, including a motion to vacate 
the summary process judgment.  After the Housing Court denied 
2 
 
 
the motions, Brown sought review via a petition to a single 
justice of the Appeals Court, which was denied on June 15, 2018.  
On July 23, 2018, Brown filed her G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition in 
the county court.  In the petition, although Brown did request 
relief from the foreclosure of her own home, she focused more 
generally and almost exclusively on the recent foreclosure 
crisis, complaining about the mortgage industry and its related 
institutions and the counsel who represent them.  The single 
justice denied the petition without a hearing.  Brown then 
submitted several additional documents in the county court, 
including a motion for reconsideration on the basis of "newly 
discovered and prepared additional information" and a motion to 
stay execution, which the single justice denied.1 
 
 
In her appeal to this court, Brown has largely changed 
course, and now focuses on the Land Court judge's judgment in a 
Servicemembers Civil Relief Act proceeding that preceded the 
foreclosure of her home.  See HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v. Matt, 464 
Mass. 193, 194-195 (2013) (describing statutory framework and 
purpose of the act).  In Brown's view, the Land Court judge's 
judgment is void because Bank of America Corporation lacked 
standing to bring the Servicemembers' action, which, in turn, 
renders everything that came after, including the foreclosure, 
void as well.  However, although it is well settled that claims 
of lack of standing are in essence subject matter jurisdiction 
claims, see Phone Recovery Servs., LLC v. Verizon of New 
England, Inc., 480 Mass. 224, 227 (2018), and that subject 
matter jurisdictional issues are nonwaivable and can be raised 
at any time, see ROPT Ltd. Partnership v. Katin, 431 Mass. 601, 
605, 607 (2000), that does not mean that subject matter 
jurisdictional issues can always be raised in every context and 
in every forum.  See Kim v. Rosenthal, 473 Mass. 1029, 1030 n.3 
(2016) (petitioner's claim that District Court lacked subject 
matter jurisdiction in underlying postforeclosure summary 
process action was not properly before court pursuant to G. L. 
c. 211, § 3; rather, she was free to raise and pursue it in 
trial court).  See also Elliot v. Commonwealth, 478 Mass. 1017, 
1017 n.3 (2018) (on appeal from single justice's denial of G. L. 
                                                 
 
1 The petitioner also submitted, in the county court, a 
photocopy of a "motion to vacate and void judgments and orders."  
Although the single justice purported to deny the motion, 
alongside his denial of the motions for reconsideration and to 
stay execution, the motion to vacate was merely a copy of a 
motion that had been directed to, filed in, and denied by the 
Housing Court. 
 
3 
 
 
c. 211, § 3, petition, noting that "the more appropriate course 
would have been for Elliot to raise the [subject matter 
jurisdictional] issue in a motion for a new trial [and then to 
appeal in the normal course from any adverse decision on the 
motion]); Harker v. Holyoke, 390 Mass. 555, 558-561 (1983) 
(Housing Court's subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate tort 
case against city, which was tried to conclusion in Housing 
Court, could not be challenged collaterally in separate 
subsequent action in Superior Court, even if Housing Court did 
not have jurisdiction). 
 
 
One route for Brown to raise her jurisdictional challenge 
to the foreclosing mortgagee's standing, the validity of the 
foreclosure, and her subsequent eviction would be to move for 
relief from the judgment on the ground that it was void 
ab initio.  See Rule 11(b) of the Uniform Summary Process Rules 
(1980); Mass. R. Civ. P. 60 (b) (4), 365 Mass. 828 (1974).  
Indeed, Brown is already pursuing that route:  she raised the 
void judgment issue in a motion in the Housing Court, the motion 
was denied, and Brown has filed a timely notice of appeal from 
that ruling.  See note 1, supra.  In light of this adequate 
alternative remedy, consideration of the issue by this court 
under our extraordinary power of general superintendence is 
unnecessary, see Hines v. Superior Court, 423 Mass. 1005, 1005, 
cert. denied, 519 U.S. 984 (1996) ("It is axiomatic that relief 
pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, is not available where the 
[petitioner's claim] can adequately and effectively be remedied 
through the normal appellate process or through some other 
available method of review"), and we express no view as to the 
merits of her claim. 
 
 
As to the other issues that Brown raises, which she has 
raised in various other courts, that she is unhappy with those 
results does not mean that those remedies were inadequate.  "Our 
general superintendence power under G. L. c. 211, § 3, is 
extraordinary and to be exercised sparingly, not as a substitute 
for the normal appellate process or merely to provide an 
additional layer of appellate review after the normal process 
has run its course."  Votta v. Police Dep't of Billerica, 444 
Mass. 1001, 1001 (2005).  This case does not, in short, present 
the type of exceptional circumstance that requires the exercise 
of this court's extraordinary power of general superintendence 
pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3. 
 
 
The single justice did not err or abuse his discretion in 
denying relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3. 
 
4 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
Debra Brown, pro se. 
 
Thomas J. Santolucito (Matthew J. Carbone with him) for the 
respondent. 
 
Grace C. Ross, pro se, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.