Opinion ID: 221459
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Countrywide originated a mortgage loan to the Crawfords, an African-American couple, in 2001. They used the loan to purchase a home in La Porte, Indiana, where they lived until employment difficulties and mounting medical bills relating to their physical disabilities caused them to fall behind in their mortgage payments. Fearing foreclosure, they agreed to pay $995 to Foreclosure Solutions in exchange for its help in reaching a renegotiation deal with their mortgagee. Countrywide did not renegotiate the loan's terms and instead initiated a foreclosure proceeding in La Porte County Circuit Court. Foreclosure Solutions informed the Crawfords that it had hired attorney Gary Dilk to represent them in the proceedings. Dilk entered an appearance in the suit, but he never contacted them and did not resist Countrywide's motion for summary judgment; the record indicates that neither Foreclosure Solutions nor Dilk ever did anything else on the Crawfords' behalf. The state court entered a foreclosure judgment in the mortgagee's favor on August 4, 2006. The Crawfords moved for relief from the foreclosure judgment on August 2, 2007, but the state court denied their motion. A sheriff's sale of the home occurred on December 13, 2006. Mortgage company Fannie Mae purchased the property, but it continued to use Countrywide to service it. Shortly after the Crawfords' motion for relief was denied, Fannie Mae moved for a writ of assistance to evict the Crawfords and take possession of its property. The writ of assistance issued on June 25, 2008, but the Crawfords convinced the La Porte circuit court to stay their eviction during their appeal of the court's denial of their motion for relief from the foreclosure judgment. That stay was conditioned, however, upon the Crawfords' monthly payment of $1,200 into a court-administered escrow account. When the Crawfords did not make full payment in October 2008, the writ of assistance became immediately effective. In November 2008, Countrywide filed a notice that it intended to evict the Crawfords pursuant to the writ of assistance. An unidentified man appeared at the Crawfords' home twice in May 2009, claiming to be from the La Porte County Sheriff's Department (though he was not in uniform). He told them both times that he would return with uniformed deputies to evict them around the end of the month. On May 27, 2009, La Porte County Sheriff's Deputies arrived at the Crawfords' home and ordered them to depart in compliance with the court's orders. The deputies had a barking dog with them, and they allegedly threatened to release the dog into the house, though their reasons for doing so do not appear in the record. The Crawfords complied and departed the home. The Crawfords subsequently filed nearly simultaneous suits in the La Porte Circuit Court and in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The substantially identical suits named Countrywide, the La Porte County Board of Commissioners, La Porte County Sheriff Michael Mollenhauer, attorney Gary Dilk, and a John Doe as defendants. The defendants removed the state court action to the federal district court, the two cases were effectively consolidated, and the district court administratively closed the original federal action. Dilk, Sheriff Mollenhauer, and the Commissioners moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The district court granted their motions on February 12, 2010. In the same order, it also dismissed the John Doe defendant on procedural grounds and denied the Crawfords' motion to add Foreclosure Solutions and the Bank of America as additional defendants. Countrywide, the sole remaining defendant, [1] then moved for summary judgment on all of the Crawfords' claims. In opposition, the Crawfords moved the court both to continue the proceedings pending additional discovery and also to judicially notice a wealth of materials. The district court denied the Crawfords' motions, dismissed aspects of two of their claims as jurisdictionally barred under the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, and entered summary judgment in favor of Countrywide on each of the remaining claims. The Crawfords timely appealed the district court's final judgment. They later filed a motion asking this court to take judicial notice of materials similar to those presented to the district court pertaining to the practice of robo-signing by mortgagees and national economic conditions. We denied their motion by our order of December 9, 2010. [2]