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When Law Firms Face Tyranny: A Call to Lawyers from Marc Dann

Marc Dann

April 28, 2025 By Leo Jennings III

DannLaw founder Marc Dann
Attorney Marc Dann

The law firms targeted by President Donald Trump’s executive orders deserve our profession’s unwavering support as they defend the Constitution. Every lawyer and bar association across America should stand with them in this fight for judicial independence (the Cleveland Metro Bar was among the first to take a stand).

Yet, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: many of these same firms helped create the environment that made Trump’s rise possible.

Before becoming victims of Trump’s transparently corrupt attacks, these prestigious firms participated in the culture of behind-the-scenes influence peddling that eroded public trust in our institutions. Their lobbying practices and the revolving door between government service and private practice fostered a two-tier system of justice that alienated working-class Americans and drove them toward dangerous populist alternatives like Donald Trump. The massive donations from these firms to candidates and parties helped corrupt both Democrats and Republicans.

Most attorneys in America don’t earn their living through influence pedaling. While we must defend these targeted firms, we should recognize that they serve the wealthiest individuals and corporations in America, charging four-figure hourly rates that place them beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.

The brazen nature of President Trump’s executive orders against Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, Covington and Burling, Jenner and Block, and Wilmer Hale was shocking. These orders prohibited these firms from representing the federal government, canceled contracts with their clients, revoked necessary security clearances and barred their personnel from federal buildings—a clear unconstitutional assault on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.

Even more disturbing has been the capitulation we’ve witnessed. Paul Weiss’s surrender was followed by similar settlements from Skadden Arps and Wilkie Farr and Gallagher and five other firms.  These once-respected institutions abandoned their diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments and pledged millions of pro bono hours to Trump-endorsed causes. The rest of the top law firms in the country by revenue joined the hall of shame by refusing to sign a brief in support of Perkins Coie,

 

These lawyers have  chosen profit over principle when given the chance to defend our profession’s independence and the Constitution itself.

With these elite firms either fighting for survival, capitulating to presidential pressure or hiding under their desks, the rest of the bar must fill the void. Those of us who charge far less than $1,000 per hour must step forward to protect democracy and prevent authoritarian overreach.

Here in Ohio we can educate the public, represent immigrants facing deportation, defend wrongfully terminated federal employees, represent the defunded non profits and local governments that are literally  saving lives and providing vital services to our communities and bring constitutional challenges against authoritarian policies that usurp congressional authority.

Over my 38 years in practice I’ve  worked with great consumer, personal injury, domestic, bankruptcy, criminal, government and transactional lawyers representing working and middle class Americans and small businesses. These lawyer’s courtroom and analytic skills are every bit as strong as our tall building lawyer counterparts. Lawyers in every community need to organize and collaborate to make sure that every attack on individual liberty and constitutional protection is challenged as the administration continues to flood the zone with their efforts to break historic legal precedents to consolidate power and to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of the rest of us.

As some of our profession’s most powerful institutions retreat from the field, the burden falls on us—the everyday lawyers of America—to champion individual rights and defend constitutional boundaries. The future of our republic may well depend on our willingness to answer this call.

Filed Under: Attorneys, In the News Tagged With: Justice, Marc Dann

March 26, 2024 By Marc Dann

DannLaw founder Marc Dann
Attorney Marc Dann

Spring is celebrated as a time for renewal. Here at DannLaw, we’re marking the beginning of the season by renewing our commitment to seeking and securing justice for consumers who have been ripped off by credit card companies, banks and retailers, homeowners abused by mortgage lenders and servicers, and victims of identity theft and other cybercrimes resulting from data breaches.

That commitment, along with our knowledge of the law, experience, expertise, and ability to develop and utilize highly effective, innovative legal strategies have made DannLaw a consumer protection powerhouse people trust to safeguard their families, their homes, and their family’s future.

Building upon that and assisting more clients than ever before are our primary goals for 2024. Here’s a look on how we plan to achieve them…

DannLaw’s Forced Arbitration Practice Group battles for consumers trapped in an unfair system

Fueled by a series of Supreme Court decisions handed down over the past 40 years, forced arbitration clauses have been adopted by tens of thousands of companies that provide a seemingly limitless array of goods and services.

This has not exactly been a positive development for consumers. Shennan Kavanagh, the director of litigation at the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) explains why:

“Forced arbitration robs consumers of their basic Seventh Amendment right to access the courts. These fine print traps allow predatory lenders, fraudsters, unscrupulous banks, and other repeat offenders to escape accountability by depriving consumers of choice and forcing disputes into closed-door, biased proceedings where consumers rarely win.”

By the way, “rarely” is an understatement. According to NCLC attorney Lauren Saunders, consumers who take on companies alone lose 96% of the time.

To make matters worse, a recent study released by NCLC revealed that the vast majority of Americans have no idea what a forced arbitration clause is or does or that they unwittingly agreed to clauses buried in the fine print of contracts they clicked “yes” to online or physically signed.

That lack of knowledge can have an extremely high price tag, a fact that doesn’t hit consumers until they become embroiled in a dispute with a company and discover they have no path to justice or reasonable opportunity to recover what they are owed.

The inequities in the system cry out for reform. That is why DannLaw has joined the NCLC and other consumer advocates in calling on Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to end the forced arbitration reign of terror. To date, both have refused to act.

In reaction to their inexcusable inaction, DannLaw has formed a Forced Arbitration Practice Group led by attorneys Alisa Adams and Kurt Jones who have extensive experience pursuing and winning forced arbitration claims. Alissa, Kurt, and the Group’s talented paralegals are ready, willing, and more than able to take on banks, financial services firms, and any company that is using forced arbitration to prey upon, rip off, or exploit their customers.

If you or someone you know is a victim of forced arbitration, click here to arrange a free consultation with our Forced Arbitration team.

We are also available to co-counsel with attorneys who now represent clients with forced arbitration claims. To learn more about collaborating with us or to refer a client to us, please click here.

The companies and industries that have been inducted into the DannLaw Forced Arbitration Hall of Shame are among the worst abusers of the process, but they are not alone. As we noted above, thousands of other providers of goods and services use it to exploit consumers. We are prepared to battle them all.

 

 

Consumer Class Action Cases

In addition to helping our clients win forced arbitration cases, DannLaw regularly files suit on behalf of individual and groups of consumers whose claims are not subject to the unfair process.

We are currently litigating a number of class action suits in courts across the nation, and we will continue to seek justice and just compensation via the courts when that is the appropriate course of action. Here is a brief overview of some of the most interesting and consequential cases we are currently pursuing:

Financial Services Wells Fargo

Wells FargoIt should come as no surprise to anyone that we have once again filed class action suits against Wells Fargo. Despite having paid more than $27 billion in fines since 2000, Wells remains a serious serial abuser of its customers and other consumers. \The cases against Wells involve:

Mortgage Discrimination. We allege that during the time interest rates were low, Wells denied loans to applicants who were members of minority groups at a much higher rate than other lenders.

Adding services to customer accounts without authorization. We have filed a series of class action suits alleging that Wells made millions of dollars by adding services including credit protection, supplemental hospital insurance, life and disability Insurance and others to consumers’ accounts without authorization or permission. If you recently received a letter from Wells apologizing for this conduct, we would like to hear from you. Please click here to arrange a free consultation that will enable us to determine if you are entitled to financial compensation from the company.

Financial Services: Bank of America

We recently filed suit in North Carolina alleging that Bank of America opened unauthorized consumer accounts. If BOA opened an account in your name without your consent or permission, please click here to share your story with us. Like people who have been victimized by Wells, you may be eligible for financial compensation.

Retailers: Dollar General

Despite being exposed in media reports like this one featuring DannLaw founder Marc Dann, Dollar General continues to charge higher prices at the register than are posted on shelves.  We are now pursuing cases in New York, New Jersey and Oklahoma, but believe the company is engaging in the practice in other states. If this has happened to you at Dollar General or another store click here to tell us your story

Retailers: Walmart

We are investigating reports that Walmart is treating customers who use two forms of payment unfairly when they are due a refund. If this has happened to you, please let us know.

Data Breaches

Data breaches that enable cyberthieves to steal and misuse victims’ sensitive and confidential information is a growing problem in the U.S. That is why we are expanding our Data Privacy and Security Practice Group and working with the legal community to develop strategies that will ensure we can pursue and secure justice and just compensation for those put at risk when corporations, government agencies, and other entities fail to protect the personal data in their possession. As part of that effort, I am pleased to report that I was recently invited to serve on the prestigious Sedona Conference Data and Privacy Liability Working Group which is working to address challenging questions related to legal liability and damages.

You should be aware that health care companies and insurers have become a prime target for hackers and cyber criminals, a fact underscored by the class action suits we recently filed against Merch Health and Optimum Health.

If you have been or are ever notified that your personal data including but not limited to your driver’s license, social security, credit card and other account numbers, confidential health or medical records, or other identifying information has been hacked, stolen, or compromised, please contact our  data privacy team. immediately so we can begin protecting you, your family, and your future. Do not delay, every moment your data is exposed increases the chances it will be misused.

 Automobile and Motorcycle dealerships:

We regularly file class action suits against car, truck, and motorcycle dealers that add unauthorized products or services to vehicles, misrepresent the amount of the sale, and/or add hidden and opaque charges like “Documentary Fees” to sales agreements.

We have secured multiple multi-million-dollar awards for classes of auto purchasers and we will continue to actively and aggressively pursue claims on behalf of consumers who have been cheated or abused. If you are troubled or suspicious about something related to your vehcile purchase contact us today to arrange a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.

Foreclosure Defense and Mortgage Servicing Litigation Update

 DannLaw began by representing borrowers and homeowners who were in or about to be in foreclosure. Today, after helping thousands of people save their homes and their financial futures, stopping foreclosures and negotiating loan modifications continue to be a primary focus of our practice—and needed as much as ever.

That is because Ohio and New Jersey lead the nation in foreclosures, due in part to a surge in attempts by debt buyers to collect “zombie mortgages”— debts that homeowners thought were forgiven or satisfied long ago but still exist.

The key to our ability to save a home is timing: the earlier we get involved, the more we can do to battle mortgage lenders and servicers who engage in unethical or illegal activities like dual tracking—promising to modify a loan while moving ahead with a foreclosure action.

If you are in or are facing the threat of foreclosure DannLaw will utilize the tested, highly effective legal strategy that has helped thousands of families just like yours.

First, our experienced foreclosure defense team will aggressively defend and foreclosure action that has been filed,

Second, we will identify, document, and pursue claims you may have against your mortgage servicer for dual tracking, misapplying payments, failing to pay taxes or insurances, and other abuses, and,

Third, the members of our talented mortgage modification team will use their expertise to work out an agreement with your mortgage company that will enable you to stay in your home.

Remember, time is of the essence. Every minute you wait brings you one step closer to losing your home, do don’t delay, click here to contact DannLaw’s Foreclosure Defense team today.

Thanks for taking the time to read our Spring 2024 update and, as always, DannLaw is here to help you.

Marc

Filed Under: Attorneys, CFPB, Class Action Lawsuit, consumer arbitration, Consumer Fraud, Data Breach, Foreclosure, Founding Partner, Identity Theft, Mortgage Fraud, Property seizure, SCOTUS Tagged With: Class Action Lawsuit, Consumer Fraud, Credit Card Fraud, data breach, deceptive practices, Loan Modification, Marc Dann, Wells Fargo

November 24, 2023 By Marc Dann

US Veterans Got a Mortgage Break. Now They’re Losing Their Homes

A Covid-era program gave borrowers a year without mortgage payments. Some are finding their lenders would rather foreclose than let them pick up where they left off.

By Caleb Melby, Polly Mosendz, and Ann Choi

November 9, 2023 at 12:01 AM EST

Sharelle Rosado didn’t give a lot of thought to the legal solicitations piling up at her front door earlier this year. She’d recently gotten a speeding ticket and figured lawyers were offering their services. It wasn’t until she began opening the letters that she realized the mail was much more serious: Her house was in foreclosure.

Rosado is savvy about homeownership. She’s a licensed real estate agent and the one-time star of the Netflix show Selling Tampa, which tracked the staff of her all-female, all-Black brokerage. Her clients count on her expertise. Yet she was bewildered that her lender was moving to take her four-bedroom house outside Tampa.

It turned out to have everything to do with a Covid-era mortgage program that allowed borrowers with federally backed loans to postpone payments for a year or longer and then, at the end of this forbearance period, apply to pay the arrears over time. About 8.5 million homeowners availed themselves of the program, including about 445,000 military veterans such as Rosado, a former Army paratrooper whose loan was backed by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

In March 2022, after her 12-month forbearance ended, Rosado filled out what’s known as a loss-mitigation application—essentially a report on her financial status, used to determine her eligibility for a repayment plan—and sent it to her lender, United Wholesale Mortgage. UWM approved her application and sent her a loan-modification agreement, under which she would resume her monthly payments and the payments she’d skipped would be due when the mortgage was paid off.

Rosado and her home outside Tampa. Photographer: Mike Adno for Bloomberg Businessweek

There was one problem: Rosado was recently divorced, and UWM wanted her ex-husband to sign the document, too. She and UWM came to an agreement, she says, that her ex didn’t need to co-sign the modification if he would instead sign a quitclaim deed, a document confirming he no longer had an ownership stake in the house. After some delay, he signed, and in August of that year, Rosado sent her signed agreement along with the quitclaim. The next month her mortgage payment of $1,282.77 was posted to her account, which she took as proof that the matter had been resolved. Not so: She was told there were still paperwork problems with her modification. She says she sent the quitclaim again.

Rosado says she had no idea the company intended to seize her home until the legal solicitations arrived on her doorstep in March. After a final failed attempt to get her loan modification approved, she faced two unappealing choices: immediately pay more than $45,000 in arrears and fees or lose her house. “I was pissed,” Rosado says. “This is embarrassing. I’m not about to lose my house.” She paid.

In a written statement, a UWM spokeswoman said the company “works hard to assist borrowers, even distressed borrowers, in servicing their loans,” but that Rosado’s account was incomplete. She said the signed agreement Rosado sent in August 2022 was an old version, and under the VA’s requirements she needed to submit a divorce decree in addition to the quitclaim. The company said it had “attempted telephone contact” with her 35 times last year and 43 times this year. Rosado says that UWM didn’t ask her for a divorce decree prior to foreclosing and that she didn’t receive any voicemails saying her file was incomplete.

At first, it looked as if the entire episode was an expensive fluke. But Rosado began hearing from friends she’d met while serving at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) in North Carolina who were having their own troubles getting their loans modified. They had some things in common, including signs of financial vulnerability, such as disability, unemployment or divorce. The lenders had things in common, too: Most were nonbank companies, which issued more than 80% of the 746,000 VA loans written last year. Over the past decade, as traditional banks have retreated from the $12 trillion US mortgage market, these lenders, which mostly operate online and outside the scrutiny of bank regulators, have stepped into the void.

The mortgage forbearance program was a feature of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, known as the Cares Act. It covered a large majority of the mortgages in the US, because most mortgages are backed by federal programs. Loan-modification agreements typically offered one of two options: The arrears would be added to the mortgage, extending the repayment period while keeping the monthly cost affordable; or, as in Rosado’s case, the arrears would be lumped into a balloon payment due when the mortgage was paid off. But the government didn’t require lenders and servicers (companies that buy and manage loans) to approve those agreements. Or to make the process straightforward and easy.

Across the US, about 4,000 veterans whose mortgages had been in the forbearance program had lost their homes as of mid-October, according to ICE Mortgage Technology Inc. Some 6,000 more are in foreclosure; 34,000 others are marked delinquent. Not all the foreclosure actions were the result of loan-modification denials. But the figures don’t include thousands of borrowers, like Rosado, who paid a lump sum, sometimes under duress.

The problem isn’t limited to veterans. Other homeowners who took part in the forbearance program have faced similar difficulties. About a half-million of them are delinquent or facing foreclosure, and an additional 87,000 have lost their homes. But the actions against veterans are notable given the lengths policymakers and regulators have gone to get them into homes and keep them there.

“If I didn’t have that money, I’d be with some of those other people, losing everything”

The Cares Act, a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill, was rolled out within weeks of the pandemic’s onset. The mortgage forbearance element in the act was broad and homeowner-friendly: Borrowers didn’t have to prove they were hard up, and mortgage companies couldn’t say no. So lenders and servicers lost a huge chunk of their primary revenue stream, and the legislation contained no bailout for them. Many were unhappy. “It’s frankly frustrating and ridiculous that we do not have a solution in place,” Jay Bray, chief executive officer of the lender Mr. Cooper Group Inc., formerly Nationstar Mortgage, told CNBC in April 2020. “There is going to be complete chaos.” His company had a strong balance sheet, Bray said, but others in the industry would “start seeing problems soon.” (Instead, interest rates fell, millions of people refinanced their mortgages, and lenders made a lot of money.)

As borrowers began to exit forbearance, in early 2021, the mortgage companies needed to help them craft repayment plans, which involved more people, more paperwork and more cost. The rollout of those plans was rocky at best. Some borrowers encountered insurmountable roadblocks, with their homes on the line. Conventional wisdom has long held that lenders prefer what are called workouts, such as loan modifications, rather than foreclosing on homeowners, which can be time-consuming and expensive. But home prices were skyrocketing, the product of a Covid-inspired desire for more space, historically low interest rates and a flood of government money. “Right now, because of the property values, they don’t mind foreclosing,” Safora Nowrouzi, a lawyer in California who handles foreclosure cases, says of lenders. “And that’s why denials are much higher.”

Borrowers, lawyers and advocates describe a rudimentary playbook: requests for documents that have already been submitted, assurances that an application is complete only for it suddenly to be reopened, envelopes that don’t contain promised documents, loans transferred to different lenders and other paper-shuffling moves that force borrowers into delinquency, increase the size of their arrears and narrow their options. Borrowers are “lulled into inaction, because they’re led to believe that the lender is working something out,” Nowrouzi says.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which monitors lending practices, says it’s unable to track how many loss-mitigation and loan-modification applications go awry, or how many are denied. But complaints from service members prompted the agency and the US Department of Justice to issue a warning in December 2021 to lenders and mortgage servicers citing borrowers who had “suffered negative impacts.” The letter described “incorrect or confusing communications” and mandatory lump sum payments as things that could run afoul of protections in the Cares Act. Borrowers with government-backed loans, the warning letter said, “generally cannot be required to repay their forbearance amount in a lump sum payment if they indicate that they cannot afford to do so when exiting forbearance.”

The letter doesn’t appear to have had the desired effect. In a report that covered transactions through March 2023, the agency again made clear that something was amiss. It said it had identified lenders that delayed homeowners’ applications and that “borrowers could not reasonably avoid injury because servicers controlled the processing of applications, and borrowers reasonably expected servicers to enroll them in the options they applied for.” The report didn’t identify any lenders by name, and no enforcement actions were taken. But the agency said the unnamed companies had “ceased the practice and developed improved policies and procedures.”

That hasn’t been the experience of veterans and advocates who spoke to Bloomberg Businessweek. “Instead of bringing attention to the damage inflicted, it conceals it,” Roberto Rivera, a consultant in New Jersey who works with attorneys whose clients are going through the loan-modification process, says of the agency’s reports. A spokesperson for the CFPB says it doesn’t make supervisory interactions with companies public.

Even after everything, Rosado considers herself lucky. Her circumstances had changed since she bought her home in 2020—the Netflix show plus a recent engagement to former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson—and she could afford the one-time payment. “If I didn’t have that money, I’d be with some of those other people, losing everything,” she says.

One of those other people is Monica Rosario, a retired Army captain. When it came time to modify the loan on her three-bedroom townhouse in Fayetteville, North Carolina, she was going through a divorce and between jobs. The divorce proceedings put her taxes in disarray, so Rosario, a colon cancer survivor, sent bank statements to her lender, Freedom Mortgage Corp., showing that she was still receiving disability benefits from the Army and was able to make monthly payments. She says the documentation never seemed to stay in her file. Freedom denied her loan-modification application and told her earlier this year that she had to pay $15,000 or lose her home, she says. She didn’t have that much money on hand and forfeited the house in a short sale in July.

Her home was listed for sale at 53% more than the price she paid. Rosario, who now rents across town, says she’s so wracked with depression that she’ll go days without stepping outside. “I still don’t understand how I was expected to pay that money so suddenly and continue on with my life,” she says. “It doesn’t make any sense.” A spokesperson for Freedom, one of the largest originators of VA loans last year, declined to comment.

“The risk of being sued and the risk of being dinged by the CFPB is baked into their business model”

Someone who last bought a home a decade ago would scarcely recognize the mortgage market today. The changes began with the 2008 global financial crisis, which was triggered by risky mortgage lending practices. In the aftermath, down payments once again became standard for most conventional mortgages, variable-interest-rate loans fell out of favor with both lenders and borrowers and income-verification standards were tightened.

Those reforms also made the business of writing mortgages less profitable for banks, which at the time underwrote the majority of home loans. Borrowers with higher credit scores and larger down payments can still count on bank loans; they’re desirable customers who, in addition to being unlikely to default, can be sold on more lucrative services, such as wealth management. For other clients, a new generation of companies sprouted up. Nonbanks, sometimes called shadow banks, don’t take deposits and are subject to much less regulation. They figured out they could make a profit lending to not-quite-prime homebuyers. Of course, the nonbanks need money to run their businesses. They often get it in the form of credit lines from many of the same banks that pulled back from the messy business of underwriting.

Last year, nonbanks accounted for 60% of all US home loans. The two biggest, Rocket Cos. and United Wholesale Mortgage, originated more than $255 billion of mortgage debt—more than Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and US Bancorp, the top three bank lenders in 2022, combined.

John Bell, who manages the VA’s home-loan program, praises the role nonbank lenders have played in the VA mortgage business. “Thank goodness we had some of these nonbanks that raised their hand and were wanting to get into the business when banks backed out,” he says.

Many mortgage companies love VA loans. They’re backed by the government, the VA doesn’t set minimum credit score requirements, and down payments often aren’t necessary. Even closing costs can be borrowed, sending loan-to-value ratios as high as 103.3%. The result: VA borrowers often begin homeownership owing more than their home is worth, creating a long earnings runway for lenders.

Nonetheless, veterans who’d been waved through when they applied for their mortgage found their lenders weren’t going to make things easy when it came time to modify their agreements. Lawyers and housing advocates say that, depending on the state, trying to beat lenders in a he-said, she-said battle over who dropped the ball in a loan modification can be almost impossible. Those who succeed say borrowers must rigorously document their cases if they have any hope of winning. And there’s a growing sense that federal agencies, far from preventing abuses, may be making things worse with complex rules that befuddle lenders as well as borrowers. “The misinformation they’re giving on those phone calls is so sickening,” says Rivera, the consultant, of calls that customers have with their lenders. “There’s nobody there who has read the guidelines. It’s absurd.”

Absurd could describe Rosie Bennett’s situation. She got forbearance for the mortgage on her home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in July 2020, the month before the death of her husband, who served as a Navy medic in the 1950s. The reprieve gave Bennett, who’s 79 and has multiple sclerosis, time to settle her affairs.

In January 2022 her mortgage servicer, Dovenmuehle Mortgage Inc., mailed her an envelope that she expected to contain her loan-modification agreement. But the envelope was empty, according to a lawsuit she filed against Dovenmuehle in federal court in Idaho. Bennett says she contacted the company several times to ask for the agreement and was told it would be sent. She continued making monthly payments, but the paperwork never came. In May 2022 the company sent a notice saying Bennett would be foreclosed on if she didn’t pay $33,529 within a month.

Rosie Bennett and her Coeur d’Alene home. Photographer: Amy Osborne for Bloomberg Businessweek

Dovenmuehle started foreclosure proceedings in June. In October the company transferred Bennett’s loan to PHH Mortgage Corp. She says she reached a modification agreement with PHH, only to have it rescinded this January. She was told she “needed to have her deceased husband execute and record” a document transferring his ownership in the house to her and was again threatened with foreclosure, according to the lawsuit, which also names PHH as a defendant.

Spokespeople for Dovenmuehle and PHH say they complied with all applicable laws and guidelines. The PHH spokesperson says, however, that the company no longer intends to foreclose. Bennett is pursuing her lawsuit anyway. The two-year saga has rattled her. “I’m just such a nervous wreck right now,” she says. “My whole body is just shaking all the time.”

One possible takeaway: Choose your lender carefully. But Bennett hadn’t contracted with Dovenmuehle or PHH. She and her husband had gotten their mortgage from Federal Savings Bank, based in New York. There are no rules preventing banks from selling mortgages or hiring nonbanks to service them. “This is the one consumer contract where you don’t get to pick who you do business with,” says Marc Dann, Bennett’s lawyer and a former Ohio attorney general, who now specializes in consumer lending cases. “She can’t say ‘Oh, I don’t like Dovenmuehle. I’m going to go down the street to Wells Fargo.’ She can’t do that.”

Settlements from cases such as Bennett’s tend to be small, and there’s little disincentive to avoid abusing borrowers, Dann says. “The risk of being sued and the risk of getting dinged by the CFPB is baked into their business model,” he says. “We could really use another 1,000 law firms doing the work that I do. At that point, maybe we would have an impact on the behavior of these companies.”

Lewis Rutherford’s maddening journey to a foreclosure notice began more than a year ago. A 63-year-old truck driver who played keyboards in bands at US Army bases across Europe in the 1980s, Rutherford hadn’t always paid his mortgage on time. After exiting forbearance, he thought he could avoid future problems by sending money in advance to his lender, Caliber Home Loans Inc. But when he sent $3,333 in August 2022 to cover three months of payments for his home in New Castle, Delaware, about $2,500 appeared to go missing.

Rutherford was irate and refused to make additional payments until the matter was resolved. In March, before he could get to the bottom of it, Caliber sold his loan to Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing. Rutherford says a Shellpoint representative told him the company had no record of his advance payments. With his money still missing, Rutherford insisted he wasn’t going to make any additional payments until the matter was straightened out. That’s a risky strategy for any borrower in a fight with a lender. In May, Shellpoint moved to foreclose.

What Rutherford didn’t know was that Caliber and Shellpoint were owned by the same company, Rithm Capital Corp. The paperwork Shellpoint said it couldn’t find existed within the same corporate family. As he fought to keep his home, “Rithm had one of its best quarters ever,” its CEO told investors in August. The company, which has been rolling up finance businesses for years, is now closing in on an acquisition of Sculptor Capital Management, a $33 billion hedge fund.

“Something ain’t right with these people,” Rutherford says. “If they see an opportunity to snatch a house, they will.”

He says that in June, after he told Shellpoint he’d spoken to Businessweek, the company said it didn’t need to foreclose on him after all. Court records show the company withdrew its foreclosure case a week later. A spokesman for Rithm’s mortgage division says the company made an error in how it applied Rutherford’s advance payments. “We have since corrected this error and are actively addressing any potential credit reporting impact caused by this issue,” the spokesman said. “In addition, we are ensuring that no other borrowers were negatively affected by this issue.”

In Charlotte, Makeda Young, a major in the National Guard who’s studying to be a physician assistant, took matters into her own hands. She says she paid more than $19,000 to clear her forbearance arrears after delays by her lender, Mr. Cooper, pushed her into default. Records show her application for a modification was accepted three times, followed by demands for documentation that Young says she’d already provided, ultimately leading to a foreclosure warning and her credit score dropping by 111 points.

Makeda Young and her Charlotte home. Photographer: Mike Adno for Bloomberg Businessweek

Not all borrowers are meticulous record keepers, but Young is. She compiled a dossier of all documents and emails and pulled her phone records to show how many hours she’d spent dealing with the company. In June she took her case to the consumer protection unit of the North Carolina Department of Justice, which contacted Mr. Cooper. In a letter, the company told the agency it had tried to reach Young on several occasions and that she hadn’t responded. But Young sent her phone logs to state officials in an email describing Mr. Cooper’s description of events as “misleading and inaccurate.”

It worked. In a new letter, Mr. Cooper described Young’s efforts to get her loan modified and erased its claims that she’d been delinquent, which restored her credit score. A spokeswoman for Mr. Cooper says Young’s application ultimately was denied after all documentation had been received. The company “is committed to finding solutions to keep our customers in their homes” the spokeswoman said.

“I’m going to make sure they investigate every single case,” Young says. She’s been documenting her efforts on Facebook. One post highlights the portions of Mr. Cooper’s letter that portrayed her as a nonresponsive customer and an amended letter showing she had in fact been in frequent contact with them. And there’s a tearful video after Mr. Cooper relented.

The replies show how common the problem has become. “Dealing with this RIGHT NOW!!!” wrote one borrower. “This just HAPPENED TO ME!!!!” posted another. “My folks in NC whom are Veterans are going thru the almost same scenario real time. Thank you Sista! ARMY STRONG!”

Filed Under: Attorneys, CFPB, Foreclosure, In the News, Mortgage Fraud, VA home loans Tagged With: Consumer Fraud, deceptive practices, Foreclosure Defense, Loan Modification, Marc Dann, Mortgage Fraud, VA home loans

September 25, 2023 By Marc Dann

If you received a postcard regarding the Madyda v. BMV case, it is because you are one of the people who paid a fee to have your driver’s licensed laminated by a deputy registrar between 2018 and 2020, even though the deputy registrars were not performing the service.

That makes you a member of the class of plaintiffs in the lawsuit DannLaw has filed against the BMV and the state of Ohio. If you would like to remain in the class and receive a portion of any funds or other compensation we recover on behalf of the plaintiffs you do not need to do anything. If you prefer to bring your own claim against the BMV, the postcard contains instructions for opting out.

Again, you do not need to do anything if you want to continue to be a member of the class. DannLaw will provide regular updates as the case proceeds.

Here is a detailed description of the case:

DannLaw files class action suit against Ohio Bureau of Motor vehicles to recover $3 million in bogus fees charged by deputy registrars

March 28, 2019 By Marc Dann (Edit)

Since July 2, 2018, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) has allowed the state’s 200 deputy registrars to charge people obtaining or renewing driver’s licenses or state-issued I.D.s a $1.50 lamination fee even though the registrars were no longer producing—or laminating—the cards on site. As a result, an estimated two million Ohioans have been charged $3 million for a service that was not performed.

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, told the Columbus Dispatch the registrars should not be pocketing the fee. “Clearly, the registrars should not be charging for something they are not providing … that’s not fair. Many of us don’t think about a buck fifty, it’s not a big deal. But it is a big deal when you think about being charged extra fees for no reason. We want to spend our money on what we expected.”

Attorney Marc Dann, founder of the Cleveland-based consumer protection law firm DannLaw agrees with Ms. Turcer. And, if the messages that have been pouring into the firm’s Facebook page are any indication, so do people who paid the bogus fee. “We posted an item on our Facebook page asking anyone who has renewed their license or state I.D. since last July to contact us,” the former Ohio attorney general said. “The response was overwhelming. Those who paid the fee were outraged. They want their money back and they want the state to stop ripping people off.”

Today the legal team at DannLaw took the first step toward recovering the unwarranted fees by filing a class action suit against the BMV in the Ohio Court of Claims. The suit asks the Court to award anyone who paid the lamination fee $1.50 plus interest. The complaint may be read/downloaded here:Madyda Alexander 2019 03 19 Complaint – Lamination Fee INITIAL DRAFT (002)

“While the dollar amount on a per-person basis may be small, there’s nothing trivial about the BMV allowing the registrars to pocket $3 million for doing nothing,” Atty. Dann said. “If everyone shrugs their shoulders and says ‘it’s only a buck fifty’ does that mean it’s ok for the state to grab five dollars or ten dollars from its citizens? Where do you draw the line? At its core, this case isn’t about the $1.50, it’s about holding government officials accountable for their actions. That’s the best way to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

According to Atty. Joe Romano of Bay Village, Ohio who is serving as co-counsel on the case the overcharges stem from the fact that in order to comply with federal regulations the BMV itself rather than the registrars began producing and mailing the licenses and I.D. cards last July. “Apparently, and this is something we hope to learn more about as the case progresses, neither the deputy registrars nor the staff at the BMV noticed that people were still being charged the $1.50 lamination fee even though the registrars weren’t laminating a darn thing,” he said.

Filed Under: Attorneys, Class Action Lawsuit, Consumer Fraud, Ohio BMV Tagged With: Consumer Fraud, deceptive practices, Marc Dann

August 2, 2023 By Leo Jennings III

DannLaw founder Marc Dann
Attorney Marc Dann

I am pleased to announce that attorneys Kurt Jones, Alisa Adams and Andy Engel as well as paralegals Maureen Dial, Madellyn Brown, and Ivona Gates who were formerly associated with Advocate Attorneys LLP have joined DannLaw and will now represent their consumer arbitration clients as members of our outstanding legal team.

The seamless transition of the Advocate staff to DannLaw will ensure that clients continue to work with the attorneys and support staff they know and trust and that cases will proceed without undue disruption or delay.

We welcome our new colleagues, and we look forward to providing their clients with exceptional level of professional service that has made DannLaw one of the nation’s leading consumer protection and class action litigation law firms.

Filed Under: Founding Partner, Of Counsel Tagged With: deceptive practices, Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, Marc Dann

May 9, 2023 By Leo Jennings III

Dann Law

Hello and Happy Spring. I’m reaching out today to provide our clients and friends with updates about several pending cases, new investigations and an exciting new addition to the DannLaw legal team. 

First I would like to introduce and welcome Jeff Crossman to DannLaw. Jeff, who recently joined DannLaw after serving in the Ohio House and running for Ohio Attorney General, will be litigating complex class action, mortgage servicing, and corporate/business cases. 

Picture of Jeff CrossmanJeff brings more than two decades of legal experience to Dann Law.  During his career, he has represented a variety of clients in complex matters, successfully resolving disputes for both individuals and businesses ranging from small startups to national corporations.  Jeff has served as an associate with a prominent national law firm, as in-house legal counsel for multiple national companies, and recently served two terms as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives where he gained invaluable experience in public policy, government, and changes made to the legal system. The sum of Jeff’s experience has given him a unique perspective and a deep understanding of the legal landscape, which he leverages to achieve the best outcomes for his clients.

Jeff believes that every client deserves high-quality legal representation personalized to fit the client’s needs, and he is committed to achieving the best possible outcomes for each and every one of his clients.

Education

  • B.A. University of Mount Union
  • M.A., University of Akron
  • J.D., Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, magna cum laude

Bar Admissions

  • State of Ohio
  • Federal District Court for the Northern District of Ohio
  • Pending: Federal District Court for the Southern District of Ohio 
  • 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

 Mortgage Servicing Litigation

Our Mortgage Servicing Litigation team, which includes Dan Solar, Michael Smith, Saher Chaudrey, Javier Merino, Brian Flick, Kim White, and Karen Ortiz, continue to bring groundbreaking cases on behalf of homeowners involved in disputes with their mortgage servicers:

  1. Delays  and mistakes made by servicers assisting homeowners who took advantage of Covid Related Mortgage Payment Forbearance provided by the CARES Act and the American Recovery Act.  As a result of these errors, many borrowers exited forbearance with higher interest rates than they should have and some are facing unnecessary and unwarranted foreclosure actions. 
  2. Homeowners put at risk because servicers mishandled tax, insurance, and other escrow payments.. 
  3. Problems that have occurred when mortgage servicing is transferred from one company to another. This problem is especially prevalent when borrowers and services are engaged in loss mitigation activities. 
  4. Accounting problems following the successful completion of a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. 
  5. Violations of Ohio’s Residential Mortgage Loan Act. Dannlaw has obtained numerous consumer/borrower favorable court decisions involving servicers who failed to abide by changes in the Ohio Law that protects borrowers.

Foreclosure Defense

As foreclosure protections sunset our Foreclosure Defense team led by Whitney Kaster with support from Amanda Severt, Karen Ortiz and Roberto Rivera are litgating cases and developing thoughtful and innovative loss mitigation and legal strategies that will enable our clients to stay in their homes. If you are or may be about to enter foreclosure, please contact form or call us at 216-373-0539. We are here to help.

Class Action Lawsuits 

The members of our class action practice group, Brian Flick, Javier Merino, Andy Wolf, Jeff Crossman, Saher Chaudrey,Kim White and Liza Marigliano are pleased and proud to report that they have worked with co-counsel to obtain preliminary approval of several class action cases across the United States in the past several months.  There are active claim deadlines in the following cases.  If you believe you are a member of the class in one or some of these actions, we encourage you to visit the case settlement websites to review the terms of settlement and if appropriate files a claim: .

Nationstar

In the Class Action case against Nationstar Mortgage and payment processor ACI we successfully negotiated a $9 million settlement that is set for final approval on May 31, 2023 in the Federal District Court in North Carolina. You still have  time to submit claims if Nationstar pulled money from your bank account without permission in April of 2021. Visit this website to make a claim https://achloanpaymentlitigation.com/.

Michigan Ave. Immediate Care

Michigan Avenue Immediate Care  has agreed to a $900,000 settlement fund for people whose personal information was exposed to the dark web as the result of a data breach. If you were a patient of the of that Chicago medical practice file a claim here:  https://www.maicincident.com/

Parker Hannifin

We’ve reached a favorable $1.75 Million  settlement for present and past employees of Parker Hannifin who were impacted by a data breach. If you ever worked at Parker Hannifin please follow this link to learn more and file a claim www.phdatasettlement.com.

We are also investigating and litigating several other significant class action cases including:

Pricing Fraud by Dollar General.  DannLaw has filed cases against Dollar General in Ohio, New York and New Jersey based on allegations that prices listed for items on shelves are lower than prices charged at the register. If you live anywhere in the United States and believe you have been overcharged by Dollar General or any other retailer, please contact our office by completing and submitting our contact form or calling 216-373-0539.

Salmonella Poisoning in Jif Peanut Butter 

The FDA, along with CDC and state and local partners are investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Senftenberg infections linked to certain Jif brand peanut butter products produced at the J.M. Smucker Company facility in Lexington, Kentucky. If you believe you have been impacted by the outbreak please complete and submit our contact form or call us at 216-373-0539.

Traffic Camera Violations in the City of Girard

Tickets were wrongly issued to drivers along Rt 80 in Girard Ohio

Impact Cases

Federal Government’s failure to compensate victims of  “Snap Skimming”  DannLaw recently filed a case in Ohio against the United States Department of Agriculture regarding the agency’s failure to reimburse Ohioans whose SNAP benefits have been “skimmed” by unknown third parties beginning in January of 2022. 

Skimming occurs when criminals use a device placed over a point-of-sale card reader to steal information from payment cards like SNAP EBT and cash assistance cards. That means SNAP or cash assistance benefits may have been stolen with the cardholder’s knowledge.

If you believe you have been a victim of SNAP theft, please please complete and submit our contact form or call us at 216-373-0539.

Racial Discrimination in Mortgage Lending by Wells Fargo We have assumed a  leadership role in investigating allegations that Wells denied  borrowers of color mortgage financing at a rate almost double that of white borrowers.. 

Ohio PUA Unemployment Benefits

In Bowling v. Dewine we continue to pursue $900 million in fully federally-funded COVID-19 supplemental unemployment insurance benefits the DeWine administration callously denied Ohioans who were left jobless as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Data Breach Cases

We are also bringing Class Actions for Data Breaches against the following Companies:

Last Pass/GoTo Technologies

Carrington Mortgage and Alvaria, Inc.

Snap Finance–Brian Flick has been appointed co-lead counsel

Key Bank/KeyBank Mortgage/Fulton Bank/Overby-Seawell

Samsung

Bet MGM (Where Javier Merino is taking a Lead Role)

Lakeview Loan Servicing

If you or someone you know has been impacted by these data breaches please complete and submit our contact form or call us at 216-373-0539.

Filed Under: Attorneys, Class Action Lawsuit, Consumer Fraud, Data Breach, Foreclosure, Identity Theft, Of Counsel Tagged With: Bowling v. DeWine, Consumer Fraud, deceptive practices, Foreclosure Defense, Marc Dann, Mortgage Fraud

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DannLaw is a Debt Relief Agency. We help people file for relief under the Bankruptcy Code.

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