This year, the CFT Clinic was solicited by two
attorneys in Concord, North Carolina, to write an amicus brief in a case before the North Carolina
Supreme Court. The case involved a
mortgage transaction in which misrepresentations on the part of the mortgage
agent caused the plaintiffs to incur nearly $200,000 in personal liability on a
debt they would not otherwise have entered into. Plaintiffs sought damages for breach of
fiduciary duty and negligent misrepresentation. These claims are rather tricky, because previous cases have interpreted
existing N.C. common law as if it is impossible to impose this duty on a mortgage
creditor, when the law actually says merely that it is not common to do so.
Four CFT Clinic students and Prof. Laura Collins
Britton drafted the brief on behalf of Plaintiffs, along with those
submitted by Plaintiffs' counsel and Yale Law School. The students spent
hundreds of hours crafting a sophisticated argument that the mortgage lender
should be liable under North Carolina law for making material
misrepresentations to unsophisticated borrowers in the course of a mortgage
transaction.
Although
the case was ultimately decided against Plaintiffs, the brief was both a
valuable learning experience for the students and a highly-regarded
contribution to the protection of vulnerable consumers state-wide.
Posted by Laura Collins Britton on Fri. June 13, 2014 4:42 PM
Categories:
Consumer Financial Transactions Clinic