JPMorgan Chase Bank v. Whitaker

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: Barnes, Presiding Judge.
• Citation: 918 S.E.2d 425
• Docket Number: A25A0152,A25A0153
• Decision Date: 02 July 2025
• Parties: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N. A. v. WHITAKER et al. Iraci v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N. A.

918 S.E.2d 425

JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N. A.

v.WHITAKER et al.

Iraci

v.JPMorgan Chase Bank, N. A.

A25A0152, A25A0153

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

July 2, 2025

[918 S.E.3d 427]

William Oxford Tate, Roswell, Cory Patrick Sims, Atlanta, for Appellant in A25A0152.

Brad Elliott Macdonald, Marietta, Glen Johnson, for Appellee in A25A0152.

Brad Elliott Macdonald, Marietta, Glen Johnson, for Appellant in A25A0153.

William Oxford Tate, Roswell, Cory Patrick Sims, Atlanta, for Appellee in A25A0153.

Barnes, Presiding Judge.

JPMorgan Chase Bank, N. A. (“Bank”), as successor in interest of Washington Mutual, N. A. (“WaMu”), sued the administrator of the estate of N. R. Hines and several of Hines’s family members,¹ seeking equitable reformation of a security deed to correct an alleged mistake in the legal description of the collateral. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that the seven-year statute of limitation applicable to an equitable reformation claim barred the Bank’s suit. The trial court agreed with the defendants and granted their motion for summary judgment. The Bank filed a notice of appeal from the trial court’s summary judgment order, but we dismissed the appeal as untimely. Following dismissal of the appeal, the Bank moved for the trial court to set aside and re-enter the summary judgment order on the ground that the court had not provided the Bank with timely notice of that order. Concluding that proper notice had not been provided, the trial court set aside and re-entered its summary judgment order, resulting in these companion appeals.

In Case No. A25A0152, the Bank contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants based on the statute of limitation because genuine issues of material fact existed as to when the alleged mistake in the legal description of the security deed could have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence. In Case No. A25A0153, the defendants contend that the trial court erred in setting aside and re-entering its summary judgment order because the court was precluded from doing so under the law-of-the-case doctrine as set out in OCGA § 9-11-60 (h). For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgments in both appeals.

[1] Viewed in the light most favorable to the Bank as the nonmoving party,² the evidence showed the following.³ In 2005, Hines owned two adjacent tracts of land in Cherokee County, Georgia, which are pertinent to this lawsuit: a larger tract consisting of 64.24 acres (“Large Tract”), and a smaller tract consisting of .626 acres (“Small Tract”). Hines and his wife’s residence was on the Large Tract; the Small Tract was unimproved land.

[918 S.E.3d 428]

On March 25, 2005, WaMu extended to Hines an equity line of credit in the amount of $200,000. Prior to the extension of credit, an appraisal report was prepared for Hines’s property that was intended to serve as collateral for the loan. The appraisal report, dated March 15, 2005, described the property as a “single family residence,” listed the property as “owner occupied,” valued the property at $900,000, specified a land acreage of over 60 acres, and listed the land lot numbers and districts for the property. Tax and insurance documents that Hines submitted to WaMu as part of the loan origination process, as well as the closing checklist for the loan, indicated that the collateral was owner occupied. However, the security deed that was executed and recorded for the loan included only the legal description of the Small Tract as collateral.

Hines obtained two modifications of his loan with WaMu in 2007. As part of the modification process, WaMu obtained a second appraisal report. The second appraisal report, dated May 26, 2007, again described the property as a “single family residence,” checked off that the property was owner occupied, valued the property at $1,050,000, specified a land acreage of over 60 acres, and listed the land lot numbers and districts for the property. On June 7, 2007, WaMu agreed to modify the loan to increase the loan amount to $300,000. The security deed for the modified loan again contained the legal description only of the Small Tract. A few months later, on August 27, 2007, WaMu and Hines entered into an agreement to refinance the loan under which the loan amount was increased to $490,000. As with the prior two security deeds, the security deed for the refinanced loan (“Third Security Deed”) included only the legal description of the Small Tract as collateral. The Third Security Deed subsequently was assigned to JP Morgan.

On December 27, 2012, Hines conveyed by quitclaim deed the Large Tract to his daughter, reserving for himself and his wife a life estate in the Large Tract until both were deceased. On July 13, 2017, Hines’s daughter conveyed by quitclaim deed her interest in the Large Tract to herself and her husband as joint tenants with right of survivorship.

On May 31, 2018, the Bank filed the present action for equitable reformation of the Third Security Deed against Hines, his daughter, and his son-in-law. Hines’s wife was later added as a defendant, and the administrator of Hines’s estate was substituted as a defendant after Hines died during the litigation. In its complaint, as amended, the Bank alleged that as a result of mutual mistake, the Third Security Deed contained the legal description of only the unimproved Small Tract as collateral. The Bank requested that the Third Security Deed be equitably reformed to include the legal description of the Large Tract, which contained Hines’s residence.

In December 2021, the defendants moved for summary judgment, contending, among other things, that the Bank’s suit was barred by the seven-year statute of limitation for equitable reformation claims. The defendants argued that the Bank (through WaMu as its predecessor in interest) should have discovered the alleged mistake in the legal description of the collateral by no later than August 27, 2007, when the refinanced loan was closed and the Third Security Deed was executed. The Bank opposed the motion for summary judgment, contending that there were genuine issues of material fact as to when the mistake in the legal description of the Third Security Deed should have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence.

The trial court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The trial court concluded, among other things, that the alleged mistake in the legal description of the Third Security Deed should have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence by no later than August 27, 2007, and that, as a result, the Bank’s equitable reformation action, which was not filed until May 2018, was barred by the seven-year limitation period.

The Bank filed an untimely notice of appeal from the summary judgment order, leading this Court to dismiss the appeal. Our dismissal order stated in relevant part:

A notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of entry of the judgment or trial court order sought to be appealed. OCGA § 5-6-38 (a). “The proper and timely filing

[918 S.E.3d 429]

Of a notice of appeal is an absolute requirement to confer jurisdiction upon an appellate court.” Perlman v. Perlman, 318 Ga. App. 731, 739 (4), 734 S.E.2d 560 (2012) (punctuation omitted). Here, the Bank’s notice of appeal was untimely, as it was filed four months after entry of the trial court’s order. Accordingly, we lack jurisdiction to consider this appeal. For that reason, the [defendants’] motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and this appeal is hereby DISMISSED.

To the extent that the trial court did not provide the Bank with timely notice of its [summary judgment] order, the Bank’s remedy is to petition the trial court to vacate and re-enter the order as a means of correcting the problem. Cambron v. Canal Ins. Co., 246 Ga. 147, 148-149 (1), 269 S.E.2d 426 (1980), disapproved in part on other grounds by Wright v. Young, 297 Ga. 683, 684 n. 3, 777 S.E.2d 475 (2015).

Following the dismissal of the appeal, the Bank filed a motion requesting that the trial court set aside and re-enter its summary judgment order pursuant to OCGA § 9-11-60 (g)⁴ on the ground that the court had not provided the Bank with timely notice of that order. The defendants opposed the motion, asserting that the dismissal of the Bank’s prior appeal of the summary judgment order constituted binding law of the case under OCGA § 9-11-60 (h)⁵ such that the trial court was precluded from considering the Bank’s request.

The trial court granted the Bank’s motion to set aside and re-enter its summary judgment order. In so ruling, the trial court found that based on its review of the records from the court’s e-filing system, “there [was] evidence that a computer error caused a failure to send the automated service [of the summary judgment order] to the parties,” and that the Bank therefore was entitled to relief under OCGA § 9-11-60 (g). The trial court also rejected the defendant’s argument predicated on the law-of-the-case rule, concluding that the rule was inapplicable under the circumstances of the present case, where this Court left open for resolution by the trial court the question of whether the summary judgment order should be set aside and reentered. After the trial court re-entered its summary judgment order, these companion appeals followed.

Case No. A25A0152

1. The Bank contends that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants based on the statute of limitation because that there were genuine issues of material fact as to when the alleged mistake in the legal description of the collateral contained in the Third Security Deed should have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence.

[2, 3] “On appeal from a grant of summary judgment, we conduct a de novo review of the evidence to determine if there exists a genuine issue of material fact and whether the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the...