Landmark Nat. Bank v. Kesler

• Decision Date: 12 September 2008
• Docket Number: No. 98,489.,98,489.
• Parties: LANDMARK NATIONAL BANK, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. Boyd A. KESLER, Appellee/Cross-Appellant, Millennia Mortgage Corp., Defendant, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. and Sovereign Bank, Appellants/Cross-Appellees, and Dennis Bristow and Tony Woydziak, Intervenors/Appellees.
• Court: Kansas Court of Appeals

192 P.3d 177

LANDMARK NATIONAL BANK, Plaintiff/Appellee, v. Boyd A. KESLER, Appellee/Cross-Appellant, Millennia Mortgage Corp., Defendant,

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. and Sovereign Bank, Appellants/Cross-Appellees, and

Dennis Bristow and Tony Woydziak, Intervenors/Appellees.

No. 98,489.

Court of Appeals of Kansas.

September 12, 2008.

Tyson C. Langhofer and Court T. Kennedy, of Stinson Morrison Hecker, L.L.P., of Wichita, for appellants/cross-appellees.

Ted E. Knopp, of Ted E. Knopp, Chartered, of Wichita, for appellee/cross-appellant Boyd A. Kesler.

Ted E. Knopp, of Ted E. Knopp, Chartered, of Wichita, for intervenors/appellees Dennis Bristow and Tony Woydziak.

Before GREENE, P.J., MARQUARDT and LEBEN, JJ.

LEBEN, J.

Landmark National Bank brought a suit to foreclose its mortgage against Boyd Kesler and joined Millennia Mortgage Corp. as a defendant because a second mortgage had been filed of record for a loan between Kesler and Millennia. In a foreclosure suit, it is normal practice to name as defendants all parties who may claim a lien against the property. When neither Kesler nor Millennia responded to the suit, the district court gave Landmark a default judgment, entered a journal entry foreclosing Landmark's mortgage, and ordered the property sold so that sale proceeds could be applied to pay Landmark's mortgage.

But Millennia apparently had sold its mortgage to another party and no longer had interest in the property by this time. Sovereign Bank filed a motion to set aside the judgment and asserted that it now held the title to Kesler's obligation to pay the debt to Millennia. And another party, Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. ("MERS"), also filed a motion to set aside the judgment and asserted that it held legal title to the mortgage, originally on behalf of Millennia and later on behalf of Sovereign. Both Sovereign and MERS claim that MERS was a necessary party to the foreclosure lawsuit and that the judgment must be set aside because MERS wasn't included on the foreclosure suit as a defendant.

The district court refused to set aside its judgment. The court found that MERS was not a necessary party and that Sovereign had not sufficiently demonstrated its interest in the property to justify setting aside the foreclosure.

I. The District Court Properly Refused to Set Aside the Foreclosure Judgment Because MERS Was Not a Necessary Party.

To resolve these claims, we will review some basic concepts of mortgages and foreclosure proceedings. We must pay close attention not only to the terms given to the parties in carefully crafted documents but also to the roles each party actually performed. No matter the nomenclature, the true role of a party shapes the application of legal principles in this case.

A mortgage grants a title or lien against a property as security for the payment of a debt or the performance of a duty. The "mortgagor" is the borrower who grants a mortgage in exchange for a loan; the "mortgagee" is the lender who gives the loan secured by the mortgage. See Black's Law Dictionary 1031, 1034 (8th ed.2004). The mortgagee is so well understood as the lender that Black's Law Dictionary defines a "foreclosure" as an action brought by the lender/mortgagee: a foreclosure is a "legal proceeding to terminate a mortgagor's interest in property, instituted by the lender (the mortgagee) either to gain title or to force a sale in order to satisfy the unpaid debt secured by the property." Black's Law Dictionary 674. Similarly, the tie between a mortgage and an underlying debt is so intrinsic that Kansas law provides that "[t]he assignment of any mortgage . . . shall carry with it the debt thereby secured." K.S.A. 58-2323. Indeed, an assignment of a mortgage without the debt transfers nothing. 55 Am.Jur.2d, Mortgages § 1002. Thus, the mortgagee, who must have an interest in the debt, is the lender in a typical home mortgage.

But for reasons thought beneficial by a group of lenders who trade mortgages, the form of mortgage used in this case designates an entity that is not the lender as the mortgagee. See MERSCORP, Inc. v. Romaine, 8 N.Y.3d 90, 96, 828 N.Y.S.2d 266, 861 N.E.2d 81 (2006) (MERS was established by large lenders to allow easy electronic trading and tracking of mortgages). Specifically, the mortgage says that the mortgagee is MERS, though "solely as nominee for Lender." Does this mean that MERS really was the mortgagee, even though it didn't lend money or have any rights to loan repayments? Assuming so, MERS argues that it was a necessary party to the foreclosure and that the foreclosure must be set aside. But the premise upon which MERS bases this argument is flawed.

What is MERS's interest? MERS claims that it holds the title to the second mortgage, not the real estate. So it does, but only as a nominee. In terms of the roles that we've discussed in the mortgage business, MERS holds the mortgage but without rights to the debt. The district court found that MERS was merely an agent for the principal player, Millennia. While MERS objects to its characterization as an agent, it's a fair one.

MERS had no right to the underlying debt repayment secured by the mortgage; MERS did not even act as the servicing agent to receive the payments and remit them to the lender. MERS's right to act to enforce the mortgage was strictly limited: if "necessary to comply with law or custom," MERS could foreclose the mortgage or enter a release of the mortgage. MERS certainly could not act at odds to its principal, the lender. Its role fits the classic definition of an agent: one "`authorized by another to act for him, or intrusted with another's business.'" In re Tax Appeal of Scholastic Book Clubs, Inc., 260 Kan. 528, 534, 920 P.2d 947 (1996) (quoting Black's Law Dictionary 85 [4th ed.1968]).

Only one Kansas case has discussed the meaning of nominee in any detail. In Thompson v. Meyers, 211 Kan. 26, 30, 505 P.2d 680 (1973), the court noted that the meaning of the term may vary from a pure straw man or limited agent to one who has broader authority.

But whatever authority the nominee may have comes from the delegation of that authority by the principal. In its ordinary meaning, a nominee represents the principal in only a "nominal capacity" and does not receive any property or ownership rights of the person represented. See, e.g., Cisco v. Van Lew, 60 Cal.App.2d 575, 583-84, 141 P.2d 433 (1943); see also Applebaum v. Avaya, Inc., 812 A.2d 880, 889 (Del.2002) (referring to nominees "as agents of the beneficial owners"). The Millennia mortgage does not purport to give MERS any greater rights than normally given a nominee. The mortgage says that MERS acts "solely as nominee for Lender." There is no express grant of any right to MERS to transfer or sell the mortgage or even to assign its duties as nominee. Nor does MERS obtain any right to the borrower's payments or even a role in receiving payments.

MERS and Sovereign correctly note that a foreclosure judgment may be set aside for failure to join a contingently necessary party. E.g., Wisconsin Finance v. Garlock, 140 Wis.2d 506, 512, 410 N.W.2d 649 (1987). For the purposes of our case, a party is contingently necessary under K.S.A. 60-219 if the party claims an interest in the property at issue and the party is so situated that resolution of the lawsuit without that party may "as a practical matter substantially impair or impede [its] ability to protect that interest." The real issue is that of the lender, the true mortgagee, to protect its security interest against the property. Whether MERS may act as a nominee for the lender, either to bring a foreclosure suit or for some other purpose, is not at issue in Landmark's foreclosure lawsuit. Moreover, an agent for a disclosed principal is not a necessary party to a lawsuit adjudicating the substantive rights of the principal. Hotel Constructors, Inc. v. Seagrave Corp., 99 F.R.D. 591, 592 (S.D.N.Y.1983); Liles v. Winters Independent School District, 326 S.W.2d 182, 188 (Tex.App.1959).

In support of the necessary-party argument, MERS and Sovereign cite Dugan v. First Nat'l Bank in Wichita, 227 Kan. 201, 606 P.2d 1009 (1980). In Dugan, a bank agreed to act as escrow agent for three parties who loaned money and obtained a mortgage as collateral. The bank was to receive all repayments made on the various loans and then remit them to the lenders in the appropriate percentages; the bank was also the named mortgagee, apparently due to the multiple lenders who were separate actors. The court held that the bank and the lenders were all necessary parties to the lawsuit, in which the borrower sought reformation or cancellation of the mortgages based on fraud and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims. The bank was a necessary party even though it had no direct financial interest in the loans and would "be affected only tangentially in its position as designated mortgagee and escrow agent." 227 Kan. at 212, 606 P.2d 1009.

In response, Kesler cites Moore v. Petroleum Building, Inc. 164 Kan. 102, 187 P.2d 371 (1947). In Moore, a plaintiff had intervened in a past foreclosure action and later filed suit to enjoin a bank and escrow holder from delivering deeds to another party. The bank was used only to hold deeds that would be delivered upon termination of the leases and was not a party to the original foreclosure. The court held that the plaintiff should have raised issues regarding his rights under the escrow agreement in the previous foreclosure case, noting that "there probably was no necessity that [the bank] should have been made a party, for it stood by only as a custodian of the deeds and for no other purpose." 164 Kan. at 108, 187 P.2d 371.

We find Moore closer to our facts than Dugan. Like the bank in Moore, MERS did not receive any funds on behalf of Millennia or Sovereign. The mortgage set out clearly that the borrower, Kesler, was to pay his monthly payments to the...