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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA 

SOUTH BEND DIVISION 

Pamela Podemski, 

 

 Plaintiff, 

 

v. 

US Bank National Association, as Trustee for 

Residential Funding Mortgage Products, Inc., 

Mortgage Asset-Backed Pass-Through 

Certificates Series 2006-EFC2, and Ocwen 

Loan Servicing, LLC, 

 Defendants. 

 

 

 Case No. 3:16-cv-225 JVB 

OPINION AND ORDER 

 In 2006, Plaintiff Pamela Podemski bought a home with a mortgage loan that eventually 

was transferred to Defendant US Bank. She defaulted on her payments two years later and US 

Bank filed a foreclosure action in the Elkhart Superior Court. The superior court entered 

judgment against her in 2009. In 2011, the court ordered a sheriff’s sale. In 2013, the court of 

appeals affirmed the superior court. 

On July 28, 2015, Plaintiff sent Defendants a notice pursuant to the Truth in Lending Act 

(“TILA”) purporting to rescind the mortgage loan she took out in 2006. The Defendants 

essentially ignored the notice and took no action against it. A week later, the superior court 

entered its fifth order of sale. The sale took place on October 28, 2015, with US Bank buying the 

home. 

At the beginning of 2016, the superior court ordered Plaintiff evicted from the property. 

A week before the eviction order was entered, Plaintiff sued Defendants in this Court 

seeking an injunction to halt any action against her in state court in relation to her home. She 
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believes that her rescission notice in 2015 nullified the mortgage when Defendants failed to take 

any court action against her. 

Defendants moved to dismiss this case, and the Court grants that motion. 

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 In the amended complaint, Plaintiff alleges that she sent Defendants a rescission notice 

on July 28, 2015, which became effective upon Defendants’ failure to challenge it in court within 

twenty days of that date. She therefore maintains that Defendants have conceded that she’s 

entitled to live in the home without any encumbrance of the mortgage. Her argument overlooks 

two things. 

First, she ignores the fact that under TILA, except for circumstances that are not alleged 

in this case, the right to rescission exists only for three years from “the date of consummation of 

the transaction or upon the sale of the property, whichever occurs first.” 15 U.S.C. § 1635(f). 

Here, the purported notice of rescission was sent nine years after the mortgage loan was signed. 

Second, Plaintiff ignores the plain language of TILA as to the creditor’s duties: 

When an obligor exercises his right to rescind under subsection (a) of this section, he is 

not liable for any finance or other charge, and any security interest given by the obligor, 

including any such interest arising by operation of law, becomes void upon such a 

rescission. Within 20 days after receipt of a notice of rescission, the creditor shall return 

to the obligor any money or property given as earnest money, downpayment, or 

otherwise, and shall take any action necessary or appropriate to reflect the termination of 

any security interest created under the transaction. 

15 U.S.C. § 1635(b). 

That is, Plaintiff overlooks the fact that the creditor’s duties arise only if an obligor has a right to 

rescind the transaction in the first place. Here, Plaintiff had no right to rescind because that right, 

if it ever existed, was extinguished once the three-year period for rescission expired. See 
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Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 790, 792 (2015) (“[R]ight to rescind does 

not last forever. Even if a lender never makes the required disclosures, the ‘right of rescission 

shall expire three years after the date of consummation of the transaction or upon the sale of the 

property, whichever comes first.’”). As such, Plaintiff’s amended complaint is based on internet 

fiction, not the law. 

 Which brings this matter to a core problem. In filing her lawsuit and seeking the 

injunctive relief, Plaintiff essentially wants to set aside state court rulings regarding the 

foreclosure of the property in question, the sheriff’s sale, and her eviction. If this Court were to 

agree with Plaintiff’s preposition---wrong as it is---that she properly rescinded the mortgage 

loan, it would necessarily overrule the Indiana court of appeals and the superior court. This is 

prohibited by the Rooker-Feldman doctrine. See Epps v. Creditnet, Inc., 320 F.3d 756, 759 (7th 

Cir. 2003) (“The Rooker-Feldman doctrine is a principle of jurisdiction that precludes the lower 

federal courts from applying appellate review to state court decisions. An action in federal court 

that alleges an injury ‘inextricably intertwined’ with a state court decision, such that success in 

the federal court would require overturning the state court decision, is barred by the RookerFeldman doctrine.”). For this reason, the Court grants Defendants’ motion to dismiss (DE 14) 

insofar as it lacks jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint. 

 SO ORDERED on March 30, 2017. 

 s/ Joseph S. Van Bokkelen 

 JOSEPH S. VAN BOKKELEN 

 UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE