Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-15-03063/USCOURTS-ca2-15-03063-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 220
Nature of Suit: Foreclosure
Cause of Action: 

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15‐3063

OneWest Bank, N.A. v. Robert W. Melina

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

______________              

August Term, 2015

(Argued: June 13, 2016     Decided: June 29, 2016)

Docket No. 15‐3063

____________              

ONEWEST BANK, N.A.,  

Plaintiff‐Counter‐Defendant‐Appellee,

–v.–

ROBERT W. MELINA,

Defendant‐Counter‐Claimant‐Appellant,

AMERICAN EXPRESS CENTURION BANK,  

AMERICAN EXPRESS BANK, FSB,  

CITIBANK, N.A., WILLIAM R. SANTO,

MAGALY BERMUDEZ, LOUIS BERMUDEZ, and

CARMEN MEDINA,

Defendants.



 

 The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the caption as

set forth above.

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______________

Before:

NEWMAN, WESLEY, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges.

Defendant‐Appellant Robert W. Melina (“Melina”)

appeals from an August 31, 2015 memorandum and order of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

(Gleeson, J.) granting a motion for summary judgment by

Plaintiff‐Appellee OneWest Bank, N.A. (“OneWest”), which had

filed a foreclosure action, and denying Melina’s cross‐motion to

dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Melina seeks

review of the District Court’s holdings that (1) a national bank is

a citizen only of the state in which its main office is located; and

(2) OneWest had standing to foreclose Melina’s mortgage. We

hold that a national bank is a citizen only of the state in which its

main office is located—not also the state of its principal place of

business—and that OneWest had standing to foreclose Melina’s

mortgage under both holder and assignment principles. We thus

AFFIRM the judgment of the District Court.

             

MICHAEL BRUK, Law Office of Michael Bruk, New York,

NY, for Defendant‐Appellant.

ALLISON J. SCHOENTHAL, Hogan Lovells US LLP,

Washington, D.C. (Nicole E. Schiavo, Hogan Lovells US LLP,

New York, NY; Chava Brandriss, Sean Marotta, Hogan Lovells

US LLP, Washington, D.C., on the brief), for Plaintiff‐Appellee.

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______________

PER CURIAM:

Today we join our sister circuits in holding that, for

purposes of subject matter jurisdiction, a national bank is a

citizen only of the state in which its main office is located.  

The facts underlying this case are straightforward. On

February 26, 2007, Defendant‐Appellant Robert W. Melina

(“Melina”) obtained and memorialized in a note (the “Note”) a

loan from Wall Street Mortgage Bankers Ltd. for $591,000 in

principal. As security for this loan, Melina executed a mortgage

on his property at 1245 77th Street in Brooklyn, New York. Wall

Street Mortgage Bankers indorsed the Note to the order of

IndyMac Bank, F.S.B. (“IndyMac”), and IndyMac later indorsed

the Note in blank.  

In July 2008, the Office of Thrift Supervision closed

IndyMac and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance

Corporation (“FDIC”) as its receiver. That same day, the Office

of Thrift Supervision created a new entity, IndyMac Federal

Bank, F.S.B. (“IndyMac Federal”), transferred IndyMac’s assets

to IndyMac Federal, and appointed FDIC as IndyMac Federal’s

conservator. FDIC later also became IndyMac Federal’s receiver.

On March 19, 2009, FDIC as IndyMac Federal’s receiver

entered into a Loan Sale Agreement (“LSA”) to sell substantially

all of IndyMac Federal’s assets to Plaintiff‐Appellee OneWest

Bank, N.A. (“OneWest”). Section 2.05 of the LSA, titled

“Closing,” contemplates that transfer of the subject notes “shall”

take place at some future time. See App. 76. Section 3.04(b) of the

LSA requires that all notes subject to transfer pursuant to the

LSA bear a specific form of endorsement.   

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Around the same time that OneWest acquired Melina’s

loan, OneWest contracted with Deutsche Bank National Trust

Company for Deutsche Bank to serve as document custodian for

Melina’s original Note and mortgage. In that capacity, Deutsche

Bank had physical possession of Melina’s original Note and

mortgage from 2009 until April 2011, at which point Deutsche

Bank sent them to OneWest. OneWest returned Melina’s Note

and mortgage to Deutsche Bank in May 2011, and Deutsche

Bank sent them back to OneWest in June 2014. OneWest then

transmitted Melina’s original Note and mortgage to its

foreclosure counsel at Gross Polowy, LLC, on June 19, 2014.  

On August 1, 2009, Melina defaulted on his loan by failing

to make the payment due that day. He did not cure the default

after receiving notice from OneWest.  

On July 21, 2014, CIT Group Inc. entered into a definitive

Agreement and Plan of Merger between CIT Group and IMB

HoldCo LLC, the parent company of OneWest. CIT Group is a

Delaware corporation with its principal place of business located

at 11 West 42nd Street, New York, New York. Article V, Section

5.2 of the Agreement and Plan of Merger requires that, during

the period between the date of the agreement and the actual

closing, OneWest seek CIT Group’s written permission prior to

undertaking almost two dozen significant corporate decisions.

These decisions include opening, closing, or relocating a branch.  

On September 10, 2014, OneWest commenced a

foreclosure action against Melina in the United States District

Court for the Eastern District of New York, invoking the court’s

diversity jurisdiction. On that day, Melina’s original Note and

Mortgage were in the physical possession of OneWest’s counsel

at Gross Polowy. On October 13, 2014, OneWest filed an

amended complaint containing substantively the same

allegations as the original complaint. On February 3, 2015,

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Melina filed an answer, and on April 2, 2015, he filed an

amended answer. OneWest thereafter moved for summary

judgment, and Melina cross‐moved to dismiss for lack of subject

matter jurisdiction.  

On June 18, 2015, the District Court heard oral arguments

on the motions. In a memorandum and order dated August 31,

2015, the District Court denied Melina’s cross‐motion to dismiss

and granted OneWest’s motion for summary judgment. The

District Court held that a national bank such as OneWest is a

citizen only of the state in which its main office is located—not

also of the state of its principal place of business—and that

OneWest’s main office is indisputably in California. The District

Court concluded further that, even if the principal place of

business of a national bank mattered for jurisdictional purposes,

OneWest’s was California.

The District Court also disagreed with Melina’s standing

arguments on the basis of its finding that OneWest was the legal

“holder” of Melina’s Note and entitled to enforce it under the

New York Uniform Commercial Code. This finding was based

on the affidavits of OneWest’s corporate representative and

counsel, which established that OneWest was in physical

possession of Melina’s original Note at the time it commenced its

lawsuit. Additionally, the District Court found that OneWest

had proven it was entitled to enforce Melina’s loan as the loan’s

assignee.

Melina timely appealed the District Court’s memorandum

and order and sought review of the District Court’s holdings on

subject matter jurisdiction and standing.

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DISCUSSION1

Diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 is proper

“only if diversity of citizenship among the parties is complete,

i.e., only if there is no plaintiff and no defendant who are citizens

of the same State.” Wis. Dep’t of Corr. v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381, 388

(1998). Diversity is measured as of the time the action is brought,

and thus a post‐filing change of citizenship does not destroy

diversity jurisdiction. See Wolde‐Meskel v. Vocational Instruction

Project Cmty. Servs., Inc., 166 F.3d 59, 62 (2d Cir. 1999).  

A corporation’s principal place of business under § 1332 is

“the place where a corporation’s officers direct, control, and

coordinate the corporation’s activities.” Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559

U.S. 77, 92–93 (2010). In practice, this “should normally be the

place where the corporation maintains its headquarters—

provided that the headquarters is the actual center of direction,

control, and coordination, i.e., the ‘nerve center.’” Id. at 93.

28 U.S.C. § 1348 provides that national banks shall “be

deemed citizens of the States in which they are respectively

located.” The Supreme Court has held unequivocally that a

national bank is “located,” for diversity jurisdiction purposes, in

 

1 We review de novo a district court’s legal determinations, including

those regarding subject matter jurisdiction. Wake v. United States, 89

F.3d 53, 57 (2d Cir. 1996); see also Viacom Int’l, Inc. v. Kearney, 212 F.3d

721, 725–26 (2d Cir. 2000) (reviewing de novo the district court’s legal

determination regarding diversity jurisdiction).  

We also review de novo a district court’s decision to grant summary

judgment. Mathirampuzha v. Potter, 548 F.3d 70, 74 (2d Cir. 2008). A

grant of summary judgment should be affirmed “‘only if there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact, and if the moving party is

entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.’” Id. (quoting Allianz Ins. Co.

v. Lerner, 416 F.3d 109, 113 (2d Cir. 2005)).

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the state designated in its articles of association as the locus of its

main office—not in every state in which it has branch offices. See

Wachovia Bank v. Schmidt, 546 U.S. 303, 307 (2006).2  

In Wachovia Bank, the Supreme Court left open the

question of whether a national bank is also a citizen of the state

of its principal place of business. See id. at 315 n.8. The Court did

observe, however, that although 28 U.S.C. § 1332 provides that a

corporation “shall be deemed to be a citizen of every State and

foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the State

or foreign state where it has its principal place of business,” 28

U.S.C. § 1332(c)(1), “[t]he counterpart provision for national

banking associations, § 1348, . . . does not refer to ‘principal place

of business,’” Wachovia Bank, 546 U.S. at 317 n.9. The Court then

dismissed this difference as one “of scant practical significance”

because “in almost every case . . . the location of a national

bank’s main office and of its principal place of business

coincide.” Id.

Several federal courts of appeals to have considered this

issue in the wake of Wachovia Bank have held that a national

bank is a citizen only of the state listed in its articles of

association as its main office. See, e.g., Rouse v. Wachovia Mortg.,

FSB, 747 F.3d 707, 708 (9th Cir. 2014) (“Looking to the Supreme

Court’s treatment of the issue and to the history and sequence of

the enactment and amendment of the statute, we conclude that,

under § 1348, a national bank is ‘located’ only in the state

designated as its main office.”); Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. WMR e‐

PIN, LLC, 653 F.3d 702, 706–10 (8th Cir. 2011) (analyzing

 

2 National banks are “corporate entities chartered not by any State, but

by the Comptroller of the Currency of the U.S. Treasury” and thus

they do not fit within § 1332(c)’s definition of State‐incorporated

entities. Wachovia Bank, 543 U.S. at 306.

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Wachovia Bank and § 1348’s statutory history to “reject [the] claim

that Wells Fargo is a citizen of both South Dakota and

California”).3 Even the Fifth and Seventh Circuits, which had

held prior to Wachovia Bank that a national bank’s principal place

of business is an independent basis for its citizenship, have now

agreed that a national bank’s citizenship is to be determined

with reference to its main office. See, e.g., Tu Nguyen v. Bank of

Am., N.A., 516 F. App’x 332, 334 n.1 (5th Cir. 2013) (“A national

bank may be considered a citizen of ‘the State designated in its

articles of association as its main office.’” (quoting Wachovia

Bank, 546 U.S. at 318)); Hicklin Eng’g, L.C. v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346,

348 (7th Cir. 2006) (“Wachovia Bank held that national banks are

citizens only of the states in which their main offices are located,

and that decision saves this case from a jurisdictional

dismissal.”).

We agree with our sister circuits that a national bank is a

citizen only of the state listed in its articles of association as its

main office. Though Wachovia Bank did not conclusively resolve

 

3 Additional circuits have, in the wake of Wachovia Bank, held that a

national bank is a citizen of the state in which its main office is located.

See, e.g., Arthur v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, NA, 569 F. App’x 669, 673

(11th Cir. 2014) (“For purposes of section 1348, a national bank is

located in the place where it is designated to have its main office.”);

McKenna v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 693 F.3d 207, 212 (1st Cir. 2012)

(“Well[s] Fargo, a national bank, is a citizen of . . . the State designated

in its articles of association as its main office . . . .” (internal quotation

marks omitted)); Hargrow v. Wells Fargo Bank N.A., 491 F. App’x 534,

536 (6th Cir. 2012) (citing Wachovia Bank for its holding that “national

banks are citizens of states where designated main office is located for

purposes of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1348”). It is not entirely clear

from these decisions, however, whether these circuits consider a

national bank to be exclusively a citizen of the state in which its main

office is located.

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whether a national bank is a citizen of the state in which it has its

principal place of business, the Supreme Court in that case did

provide some indication that, for diversity purposes, a national

bank’s citizenship should be limited to the location of its main

office. See 546 U.S. at 307 (“Were we to hold . . . that a national

bank is additionally a citizen of every State in which it has

established a branch, the access of a [national] bank to a federal

forum would be drastically curtailed . . . .”). This is consistent

with both the statutory history of § 1348 and canons of

construction.

Congress first addressed jurisdiction for national banks in

1882, when it enacted the statutory predecessor to the current

§ 1348.   This 1882 statute ensured jurisdictional parity between

national banks and state‐chartered banks by “provid[ing], in

clear and unmistakable terms, that the courts of the United

States should not have jurisdiction . . . unless they would have

jurisdiction under like circumstances of suits by or against a state

bank doing business in the same state with the national bank.”

Leather Mfrs.’ Nat’l Bank v. Cooper, 120 U.S. 778, 781 (1887)

(emphasis omitted). The 1882 statute remained in effect until

1887, at which point the language tying national bank

jurisdiction to state bank jurisdiction was removed. Rather than

focusing on parity with state banks, the 1887 statute evoked

jurisdictional parity between national banks and individual

citizens. See Act of Mar. 3, 1887, ch. 373, § 4, 24 Stat. 552, 554–55.

In 1911, Congress once again entertained the issue and

provided, in relevant part, that “all national banking associations

established under the laws of the United States shall, for the

purposes of all other actions by or against them . . . be deemed

citizens of the States in which they are respectively located.” Act

of Mar. 3, 1911, ch. 231, § 16, 36 Stat. 1087, 1093. It was not until

1948 that Congress arrived at the current version of this statute,

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codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1348, which provides in relevant part that

“[a]ll national banking associations shall, for the purposes of all

other actions by or against them, be deemed citizens of the States

in which they are respectively located.” Act of June 25, 1948, ch.

646, § 1348, 62 Stat. 869, 934.

Though Congress did not tinker further with the

citizenship of national banks after 1948, it did dramatically shift

the understanding of diversity jurisdiction with respect to the

citizenship of state‐chartered corporations in 1958. That year,

Congress enacted a provision stating that a state‐chartered

corporation—which includes state‐chartered banks—is a citizen

of both the state of incorporation and the state of its “principal

place of business.” Act of July 25, 1958, Pub. L. No. 85‐554, sec. 2,

§ 1332, 72 Stat. 415. That provision is now codified at 28 U.S.C.

§ 1332(c)(1).

The meaning of a statute’s terms is to be determined as of

the time that it became law. See MCI Telecomms. Corp. v. Am. Tel.

& Tel. Co., 512 U.S. 218, 228 (1994). At the time that Congress

employed the word “located” in § 1348, the statutory concept of

“principal place of business” had not yet come into existence.

Canons of statutory construction thus counsel against

interpreting “located” in § 1348 as providing a basis for subject

matter jurisdiction based on a national bank’s principal place of

business. See WMR e‐PIN, 653 F.3d at 709 (“We will not import a

jurisdictional concept into § 1348 that was unknown at the time

of its adoption.”).  

As observed by our sister circuits, “[n]othing in the

current version of the statute or in its history suggests that

Congress intended to revive the principle of jurisdictional parity

between state‐chartered banks and national banks” once it

affirmatively deleted that parity from earlier versions of the

statute. Rouse, 747 F.3d at 715.  We agree that  

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when Congress introduced principal‐place‐of‐

business citizenship for state banks and

corporations in § 1332(c)(1), it made no reference to

jurisdictional parity, nor to national banks or § 1348.

And nothing in § 1348 indicates that it would

incorporate by reference any subsequent change in

the statutes governing jurisdiction over state banks

and corporations.

WMR e‐PIN, 653 F.3d at 708.  

If Congress wishes to amend § 1348, then of course it is

free to do so. That task, however, is not for us. See Rouse, 747

F.3d at 715. We again share our sister circuits’ view that “should

Congress wish to link the jurisdiction for national and state

banks, the statute can easily be amended,” id., and that

“[w]hether [jurisdictional parity between national and state

banks] ought to be revived is a policy question for Congress, not

the federal courts,” WMR e‐PIN, 653 F.3d at 709.

Melina argued before the District Court that OneWest’s

principal place of business is in New York, and thus that there

could be no diversity jurisdiction between the parties. He argued

further that CIT Group’s proposed acquisition of OneWest’s

parent company warranted use of CIT Group’s principal place of

business instead of OneWest’s for purposes of diversity

jurisdiction. The District Court rejected these arguments,

concluding instead that (1) OneWest had successfully shown

“that its main office and principal place of business is in

California based on an affidavit submitted by Jon Dickerson, the

First Vice President of its foreclosure department, and an

application to the Federal Reserve System,” App. 167, and (2)

“the citizenship of any actual or proposed parent of OneWest

does not control OneWest’s citizenship for purposes of diversity

jurisdiction,” App. 168.  

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On appeal, Melina argues that “a national association is a

citizen of the state of its principal place of business” as

evidenced by “[c]ongressional intent to maintain parity between

national and state banks, Supreme Court dictum, this Court’s

reluctance to limit said citizenship to only the state designated as

the main office, and federal government agency interpretation of

28 U.S.C. § 1348.” Appellant’s Br. 9. As support for his argument,

Melina relies primarily on two of this Court’s previous

decisions—World Trade Ctr. Props., L.L.C. v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co.,

345 F.3d 154, 161 (2d Cir. 2003) and Lerner v. Fleet Bank, N.A., 318

F.3d 113, 124–25 (2d Cir. 2003)—as well as a 2002 interpretive

letter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  

We do not find Melina’s arguments persuasive. The cases

that Melina cites, which he concedes do not “directly settle[] the

issue of whether a national association[’s] principal place of

business is relevant for diversity purposes,” Appellant’s Br. 12,

undermine rather than support his points. World Trade Center

Properties was directly abrogated by Wachovia Bank. See Wachovia

Bank, 546 U.S. at 309 (recognizing World Trade Center Properties as

representing one side of a circuit split and holding in favor of the

other side of that split). Lerner, too, was decided before Wachovia

Bank, and it does not even so much as mention § 1348.

The interpretive letter from the Office of the Comptroller

of the Currency does not fare much better. Though Melina is

correct that the letter allows for a national bank’s citizenship to

be determined by its principal place of business, the letter

explicitly relies on and parrots the reasoning of Firstar Bank, N.A.

v. Faul, 253 F.3d 982 (7th Cir. 2001), a case that did not survive

the Seventh Circuit’s interpretation of Wachovia Bank. See Hicklin

Eng’g, 439 F.3d at 348 (holding, in accord with Wachovia Bank,

that “national banks are citizens only of the states in which their

main offices are located”); see also WMR e‐PIN, 653 F.3d at 708

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(“The Seventh Circuit has gone further, reading Wachovia Bank to

reject the proposition embraced in its Firstar Bank decision that a

national bank’s principal place of business is an independent

basis for citizenship.”). Moreover, the Office of the Comptroller

of the Currency repudiated its own letter at oral argument in

Wachovia Bank, stating clearly that “we don’t think that a

national banking association is a citizen of a State in which its

principal place of business is found, insofar as that might be

different from the State in which its main office is located.”

WMR e‐PIN, 653 F.3d at 710 (quoting Oral Arg. Tr. at 18:22,

Wachovia Bank, 546 U.S. 303).

Furthermore, the District Court correctly held that

OneWest’s principal place of business is, like its main office, in

California. Melina does not directly dispute this fact. Instead, he

argues that OneWest’s principal place of business was New York

because OneWest’s parent company, IMB HoldCo, was being

purchased by CIT Group—a company headquartered in New

York—at the time that OneWest filed its complaint. Melina

claims that when OneWest filed its original complaint on

September 10, 2014, the Agreement and Plan of Merger between

CIT Group and IMB HoldCo, dated July 21, 2014, had already

“transferred responsibility for major corporate decisions to New

York State, which in turn means New York is the place where

One[W]est’s officers direct, control, and coordinate corporate

activities.” Appellant’s Br. 17.  

OneWest responds that “CIT Group’s future acquisition

of OneWest’s parent company could not affect OneWest’s

principal place of business because . . . ‘[w]hen formal separation

is maintained between a corporate parent and its corporate

subsidiary, federal court jurisdiction over the subsidiary is

determined by that corporation’s citizenship, not the citizenship

of the parent.’” Appellee’s Br. 13 (quoting Schwartz v. Elec. Data

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Sys., Inc., 913 F.2d 279, 283 (6th Cir. 1990)). OneWest is correct. It

is well established in other circuits4 that “a subsidiary

corporation has its own principal place of business for purposes

of diversity of citizenship jurisdiction, unless it is merely an

‘alter ego’ or agent of the parent corporation,” Charles Alan

Wright, et al., 13F Federal Practice and Procedure § 3625 (3d ed.),

and we agree. Melina does not argue that OneWest was an alter

ego or agent of its parent company, and thus his argument that

OneWest assumed its parent company’s principal place of

business holds no water.

Melina also contends that the express terms of the

Agreement and Plan of Merger “effectively transferred

One[W]est[’]s principal place of business to New York, New

York.” Appellant’s Br. 18. In making this argument, Melina relies

heavily on § 5.2’s restriction on OneWest’s freedom to open,

close, or relocate any branch office. He argues that this

restriction means that OneWest, IMB HoldCo as its parent, and

CIT Group as its proposed parent all “have the same principal

place of business [i.e., New York].” Appellant’s Br. 18.

This argument, too, must fail; a corporate subsidiary does

not assume the principal place of business of its future corporate

parent solely as a result of its subsidiary status.    The merger

agreement between IMB HoldCo and CIT Group says nothing

about OneWest’s principal place of business. Though § 5.2

requires OneWest to obtain approval before undertaking certain

transactions, this provision does not morph OneWest into an

alter ego or agent of its parent, IMB HoldCo—and thus it does

 

4 See, e.g., Shell Rocky Mountain Prod., LLC v. Ultra Res., Inc., 415 F.3d

1158, 1163 (10th Cir. 2005); Danjaq, S.A. v. Pathe Commc’ns Corp., 979

F.2d 772, 775 (9th Cir. 2005); Schwartz v. Elec. Data Sys., Inc., 913 F.2d

279, 283 (6th Cir. 1990).

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not mean that OneWest assumes IMB HoldCo’s principal place

of business.

Finally, Melina argues that the District Court’s grant of

summary judgment “should be reversed because there is a

genuine issue of material fact as to plaintiff[’]s standing to

commence a foreclosure action.” Appellant’s Br. 19. The

“genuine issue of material fact,” in Melina’s view, is whether

OneWest was the holder or assignee of the mortgage or

underlying Note at the time the action was commenced.  

Under New York law, “[a] plaintiff establishes its

standing in a mortgage foreclosure action by demonstrating that,

when the action was commenced, it was either the holder or

assignee of the underlying note.” Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v.

Rooney, 132 A.D.3d 980, 981 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t 2015). “Either a

written assignment of the underlying note or the physical

delivery of the note prior to the commencement of the

foreclosure action is sufficient to transfer the obligation, and the

mortgage passes with the debt as an inseparable incident.” U.S.

Bank, N.A. v. Collymore, 68 A.D.3d 752, 754 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t 2009);

accord Aurora Loan Servs., LLC v. Taylor, 25 N.Y.3d 355, 361 (2015).

Melina does not contest OneWest’s possession of the Note

at the time it filed its complaint. Instead, Melina argues that

OneWest’s failure “to provide the exact date the Note was

transferred, or any details at all regarding the delivery of the

Note prior to commencement of a foreclosure action” is fatal to

its claim for summary judgment. Appellant’s Br. 24. This

argument, however, has already been rejected by the New York

State Court of Appeals. In Aurora Loan Services, LLC v. Taylor, 25

N.Y.3d 355 (2015), the New York State Court of Appeals noted

that “[a]lthough the better practice would have been for [the

plaintiff] to state how it came into possession of the note in its

affidavit in order to clarify the situation completely,” the

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plaintiff was not precluded from obtaining summary judgment

by not having provided these details. Aurora Loan Servs., 25

N.Y.3d at 362. Following Aurora, New York courts have

repeatedly held that proof of physical possession—such as the

affidavits of OneWest’s corporate representative and counsel in

this case—is sufficient on its own to prove a plaintiff’s standing

to foreclose on the mortgage associated with the note. See, e.g.,

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Charlaff, 134 A.D.3d 1099, 1100 (N.Y. 2d

Dep’t 2015); Rooney, 132 A.D.3d at 982; HSBC Bank USA, N.A. v.

Spitzer, 131 A.D.3d 1206, 1207 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t 2015); Deutsche

Bank Nat’l Tr. Co. v. Abdan, 131 A.D.3d 1001, 1002 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t

2015). OneWest thus had no obligation to provide details

pertaining to the transfer or delivery of Melina’s Note in order to

prove its standing to foreclose on the associated mortgage.  

Moreover, OneWest was the assignee of Melina’s loan. In

New York, standing to foreclose may be established by “a

written assignment of the underlying note.” OneWest, F.S.B. v.

Goddard, 131 A.D.3d 1028, 1029 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t 2015). “No special

form or language is necessary to effect an assignment as long as

the language shows the intention of the owner of a right to

transfer it.” Suraleb, Inc. v. Int’l Trade Club, Inc., 13 A.D.3d 612,

612 (N.Y. 2d Dep’t 2004) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Here, the LSA provided that FDIC, as receiver and conservator

for IndyMac Federal, would “sell[], transfer[], convey[], assign[]

and deliver[]” to OneWest, and OneWest would “purchase[],

accept[] and assume[] from [FDIC] . . . all of [FDIC’s] rights, title

and interests in, to and under” certain defined assets. App. 73

(§ 2.01(a)). The LSA thus assigned to OneWest all of the rights

that FDIC previously had to Melina’s loan as the conservator

and receiver of IndyMac Federal—and this assignment sufficed

to give OneWest standing to foreclose.

Case 15-3063, Document 77-1, 06/29/2016, 1804816, Page16 of 17
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CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of

the District Court.

Case 15-3063, Document 77-1, 06/29/2016, 1804816, Page17 of 17