Author Archives: David A. Blansky, Esq.

Gestures Increase Productivity on the iPad

By David A. Blansky, Esq. | Published April 11, 2012

While “giving the finger” is generally frowned upon in a civilized society, the use of multi-finger gestures can increase productivity on the iPad.

In October 2011, Apple released an upgrade to iOS, iOS 5, which officially incorporated the use of multi-finger gestures.

Once mastered, these gestures nearly eliminate the need to press the Home Button and significantly speed moving between and closing applications.

By now you have likely mastered using two fingers to zoom in and out and move between the Home Screens, and double tapping to zoom.  With a little practice, you will master these multi-finger gestures and never look back.

Five-finger pinch: Use all of your fingers to grab the screen to return to the Home Screen regardless of what application you are working in.

Four-finger swipe up: Rather than double tap the Home Button, swipe four fingers upward to see the multitasking bar that shows you the apps currently running.  Once the multitasking bar is in view, select a different app, hold down an app to put until it “wiggles” if you want to close it (by tapping the red circle containing a minus sign) or swipe four fingers down to hide the multitasking bar.

Four-finger swipe left / right: Alternatively, swipe left or right to move through apps that are still running, rather than using than resorting to the multitasking bar.  You could plan ahead by opening your most often used apps one after the other so that you can quickly move between them using the four-finger left/right swipe.

If the gestures do not seem to be available, make sure you are running iOS 5 or later and that multi-finger gestures are activated on your iPad.  Look in Settings, General, Multitasking Gestures to set the slider to On.

The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of LH&M.

 

Delaware Bankruptcy Court Amends Standing Order of Reference

By David A. Blansky, Esq. | Published April 2, 2012

In an apparent response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v. Marshal, 131 S. Ct. 2594, 180 L. Ed. 2d 475 (2011), on February 29, 2012 the United States District Court for the District of Delaware issued an Amended Standing Order of Reference stating that if a bankruptcy judge or district judge determines that entry of a final order or judgment by a bankruptcy judge would not be consistent with Article II of the United States Constitution, and determined to be a core matter, the bankruptcy judge shall hear the proceeding and submit findings of fact and conclusions of law to the district court.  A copy of the amended order may be found here.  The prior standing order of reference for the District of Delaware can be found here for comparison.

The amended standing order of reference is identical to the one entered by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on January 31, 2012, a copy of which may be found here.

The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of LH&M.

 

Making Sense of the Settlement Between the Owners of the Mets and Picard in the Madoff Case

By David A. Blansky, Esq. | Published April 1, 2012

On March 19, 2012, the day the trial of the lawsuit by Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee in the Madoff case, against the owners of the Mets was to begin, the parties reached a settlement of Picard’s claims.  The material terms of the settlement were placed on the record before District Court Judge Jed Rakoff.  A transcript of the proceeding can be found here.

Under the settlement, which is subject to Court approval on motion under Rule 9019 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure, Picard is to be paid $162 million in satisfaction his claims against Saul Katz and Fred Wilpon.  At first blush, this appears to be a great victory for Picard, as he claimed this was the amount of “profits” withdrawn by Katz and Wilpon during the six years before the Ponzi scheme was discovered.  The $162 million settlement sum is inclusive of $83 million previously awarded to him.

Picard originally demanded $1 billion in his complaint, which sum was reduced to $386 million following a ruling by Judge Rakoff in September 2011.

Significantly, Katz and Wilpon will not need to go out of pocket to pay the $162 million for some time and avoids their risk of liability on Picard’s “willful blindness” claims.   For the next three years, by assignment, Picard will be be able to retain funds that would otherwise be paid to Katz and Wilpon to reimburse them as wronged customers.  Should the amount retained by Picard from distributions assigned by Katz and Wilpon be insufficient to pay the entire $162 million, Katz and Wilpon will have to pay the balance in equal payments at the end of the fourth and fifth years.  In the unlikely event Picard recovers more than $162 million for Katz and Wilpon as creditors, he will have to pay them any amount above the $162 million.

Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo served as mediator between the parties.

While each side has painted the settlement as fair to the parties and appeared to be relieved that the trial was averted, other interested parties and commentators have been critical of the settlement.  Counsel for hundreds of Madoff victims, Helen Chaitman, called the settlement an “incredible defeat” for Picard.  Others contend that Picard feared to adjucate his “willful blindness” claim as the outcome could impact several other lawsuits that have not be tried as of yet.

Given that Bankruptcy Code Section 502(d) provides that the claim of a creditor against whom a judgment has been awarded and fails to pay said judgment may be subject to disallowance,  I am somewhat puzzled by the outcome.  To the extent that Picard was awarded judgment on any of his claims against the Met’s owners and they failed to satisfy the judgment, he could have sought to disallow their claims in the Madoff estate, thereby precluding them from participating in distributions to be made in the future.  At the same time, Picard would have his remedies as a judgment creditor.

Mets fans had been rooting for Picard in the hope that if a substantial judgment had been entered against Katz and Wilpon they be forced to sell the team.

The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of LH&M.

 

District Court Partially Overturns Bankruptcy Court Decision Concerning MERS Authority

By David A. Blansky, Esq. | Published March 30, 2012

On March 28, 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert vacated part of the decision made by Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert E. Grossman in In re Ferrel L. Agard, 444 B.R. 231 (Bankr.E.D.N.Y. 2011), wherein he concluded that MERS’s “nominee” status did not confirm upon it authority to assign mortgages.  A copy of the decision may be found here.

In Agard, Judge Grossman granted a motion for relief from stay because the movant mortgagor had been determined to be secured to the residence by the state court that issued judgment of foreclosure in its favor.  In addition to granting relief from stay, Judge Grossman concluded that “in all future cases which involve MERS, the moving party must show that it validly holds both the mortgage and the underlying note in order to prove standing before this Court.”  Id at 254.

Subsequent to the issuance of the decision in Agard, Agard appealed Judge Grossman’s order granting stay relief.  MERS moved, as an intervening party, for reconsideration and cross-appealed the order granting relief from the automatic stay.  Judge Grossman denied MERS motion for reconsideration on April 8, 2011.  MERS appealed the denial of its motion for reconsideration.  Agard later withdrew her appeal.

On appeal, MERS argued that to the extent that Judge Grossman’s decision addresses issues beyond the application of the Rooker-Feldman doctine and res judicata, the Agard decision was an unconstitutional advisory opinion requiring vacatur.   Judge Seybert agreed and observed that once Judge Grossman determined he was barred from revisiting the movant’s status as a secured creditor as a result of the judgment of foreclosure entered by the state court, the Bankruptcy Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute.  She determined, accordingly, that Judge Grossman’s conclusion that MERS lacked authority to assign the subject mortgage had no effect on the parties before him.   As a result, she directed that his decision in Agard addressing the hypothetical question concerning the standing of the movant to seek relief from stay, in the absence of a judgment of foreclosure, be vacated as to his ruling on this issue.

While the vacatur of part of the Agard decision prevents the case from being cited as authority for the proposition that MERS, in its capacity as nominee, lacks standing to assign mortgages, it should not dissuade practitioners from taking up the issue in a future case where judgment of foreclosure has not been entered or from using Judge Grossman’s observations as grounds to object to relief from the automatic stay.

Judge Seybert’s decision was entered in the consolidated appeals before the District Court in Agard v. Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc., case no. 11-cv-1826 and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems Inc. v. Ferrel L. Agard, et al, case no. 11-cv-2366, both arising out of Ferrel L. Agard’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy case, case no. 10-77338-REG.

The views expressed on this post are mine and do not necessarily reflect the views of LH&M.

 

Foreclosure Firm Steven J. Baum to Close Down

By David A. Blansky, Esq. | Published November 21, 2011

A law firm that had become a lightning rod in the controversy over mortgage-foreclosure practices has shut down, costing 89 employees their jobs.

The Steven J. Baum P.C. law firm, which has offices in Amherst, N.Y., and Westbury on Long Island, has filed papers with government agencies notifying them that it plans to close. It made the filings under a federal law requiring employers to provide notice before mass layoffs.

“Disrupting the livelihoods of so many dedicated and hardworking people is extremely painful, but the loss of so much business left us no choice but to file these notices,” said Mr. Baum in a statement issued on Monday.

A firm spokesman said it would have no further comment beyond the release.Mr. Baum and his colleagues have come under fire for their foreclosure-related legal work. They are one of numerous firms across the country that represent banks and services in trying to foreclose on the millions of homeowners who have defaulted on their loans.

Some of these firms’ aggressive, and, in some cases, duplicitous practices, have earned them the moniker “foreclosure mills.”The Baum firm’s tactics, which included the “robo-signing” of documents, has been among the most criticized.

Last year, a state-court judge in Brooklyn called one foreclosure filing from the Baum firm that he said contained numerous falsities “incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous.”Last month, the firm struck a settlement with the United States attorney in Manhattan, which had been investigating the Baum firm and whether, on behalf of its lender clients, it filed misleading legal papers to expedite foreclosures.

The firm agreed to pay a $2 million penalty and vowed change its practices to resolve the case.

Read the full article here: Foreclosure Firm Steven J. Baum to Close Down – NYTimes.com.

 

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