Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

After refinancing her mortgage in 2006, plaintiff filed suit under the Truth In Lending Act, 15 U.S.C 1601, claiming failure to properly notify her of her right to cancel the mortgage. The court instructed the jury that, because her signature was on the notice of right to cancel, something more than her testimony was needed to rebut the presumption that she received it. The jury returned a verdict for defendants. The Third Circuit vacated and remanding, stating that there is no basis in TILA or the Federal Rules of Evidence for the instruction and the error was not harmless. The signature does no more than create a rebuttable presumption of delivery.

The district court granted a default judgment of foreclosure in favor of the mortgage company. Following a sale, at which the mortgage company was the successful bidder, the court granted a motion to set aside the sale because the mortgage company had failed to notify a junior lien holder of the sale, as required by state law, so that the junior lien remained in place. The court subsequently granted the junior lien holder's motion to vacate the set-aside order, reasoning that the notice issue involved an independent question of state law and was not properly before it. The Third Circuit vacated. The court's diversity jurisdiction extends to resolving issues that arise from an error committed during the pendency of its jurisdiction over a marshal's sale that it ordered. No overriding state policy or matter of substantial public concern, justifying abstention, was implicated in this case.