Adelson v. Ocwen Financial Corporation, et al

Filing 93

ORDER STRIKING 91 Plaintiff's Objections and ADOPTING 86 Report and Recommendation. Signed by District Judge Terrence G. Berg. (AChu)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
WENDY ADELSON,
Plaintiff,

Case No. 07-13142
HON. TERRENCE G. BERG
HON. MONA K. MAJZOUB

v.
OCWEN FINANCIAL CORPORATION, et al.,
Defendants.

/

ORDER STRIKING PLAINTIFF’S OBJECTIONS (Dkt. 91) AND ADOPTING
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION (Dkt. 86)
Before the Court is a twenty-five page Report and Recommendation by
Magistrate Judge Mona Majzoub, issued on February 16, 2017, recommending
resolutions of four pretrial motions. (Dkt. 86).
Any Objections to the Report and Recommendation were due “[w]ithin
fourteen days after being served with a copy” of a report and recommendation. 28
U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). On March 2, 2017, Plaintiff filed Objections (Dkt. 88) consisting
of forty-four pages of argument. On the same day, Plaintiff also filed a Motion for
Leave to File Excess Pages. (Dkt. 89). The Eastern District of Michigan’s Local Rule
72.1(d)(5) provides, “LR [local rule] 7.1 governs the form of objections, responses,
and replies.” Local Rule 7.1, in turn, states that “the text of a brief [. . .], including
footnotes and signatures, may not exceed 25 pages.” Pursuant to these Rules, on
March 8, 2017, this Court issued an Order denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Leave to

File Excess Pages (Dkt. 89) and striking Plaintiff’s impermissibly long Objections.
(Dkt. 88). The Court instructed Plaintiff to refile Objections that meet the
requirements of the Local Rules by March 13, 2017 and ordered Defendants to
respond, if they so desired, by March 20, 2017.
On March 11, 2017, Plaintiff refiled her Objections. (Dkt. 91). Although
Plaintiff’s refiled Objections complied with the Local Rules’ page-limitation
requirement, they did so by violating its font-size and spacing requirements. The
argument portion of Plaintiff’s brief meets the Local Rules’ requirement of twentyfive pages, but Plaintiff typed the body-text of her refiled Objections in 12-point font
(with footnotes in 10-point font) and also changed significant portions of the bodytext from double to single-spaced. Local Rule 5.1(a)(2) requires the type size of all
text to be no smaller than 14-point font, while Local Rule 5.1(a)(3) requires all text
to be double-spaced, with the exception of quoted material and footnotes. Like her
initial Objections, Plaintiff’s refiled Objections violate the Eastern District of
Michigan’s Local Rules. Moreover, because the contents of Plaintiff’s initial
Objections and refiled Objections are nearly identical, it appears that Plaintiff
ignored the Court’s order to reduce the length of the Objections and simply tried to
jam the same over-long Objections into a smaller number of pages rather than make
an earnest attempt to reduce the content to a permissible size. It does not appear
that Plaintiff made any good-faith effort to meet the page-limit requirement, as
directed by the Court. For these reasons, Plaintiff’s refiled Objections are hereby
STRICKEN. (Dkt. 91).
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The Court has reviewed the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation.
(Dkt. 86). Where neither party objects to the report (or, as here, where neither party
files a proper objection) within fourteen days, the district court is not obligated to
independently review the record. See Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140, 149-52 (1985).
The Court will therefore accept the Magistrate’s Report and Recommendation of
February 16, 2016 as this Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law.1
Accordingly, it is hereby ORDERED that Magistrate Judge Majzoub’s
Report and Recommendation of February 16, 2016 is ACCEPTED and ADOPTED.
It is FURTHER ORDERED that:
(1) Plaintiff’s Motion to Separate HSBC Bank USA, N.A., as trustee on behalf
of Ace Security Corp., Home Equity Loan Trust Series 2007-HE1 Asset Backed
Pass-Through Certificates, in its Pleadings as Being Part of the Northern District of
Illinois Multi-District Litigation Case No. 04-cv-2714, MDL 1604 (Dkt. 52) is
DENIED;
(2) Plaintiff’s Motion to Void, Cancel and/or Rescind U.S. District Court for
the N.D. of Ill Dkt No. 04-C-2714 December 10, 2010 Settlement as to Dkt 07-cv07208 “Only” or Confirm Plaintiff’s Faxed Opt-Out Notice as Timely & Effective or

1
 Where a party properly files objections to a report and recommendation, a district court
must conduct a de novo review of the parts of a report and recommendation to which a
party objects. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Although under no obligation to do so in this case, the
Court has nevertheless carefully reviewed all of Plaintiff’s refiled Objections, as well as
Defendants’ responses to those Objections. Under the de novo standard, the Court is
satisfied that the reasoning and legal analysis of the Report and Recommendation is correct
and none of Plaintiff’s refiled Objections are meritorious.
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in the Alternative, for an Enlargement of Time to Opt-Out Waiver (Dkt. 67) is
DENIED;
(3) Defendant Scott W. Anderson’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s Corrected
Second Amended Complaint (Dkt. 60) is GRANTED;
(4) Defendants Ocwen Financial Corporation, Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC,
HSBC Bank USA N.A., as Trustee on behalf of Ace Securities Corp. Home Equity
Loan Trust and for the Registered Holders of Ace Securities Corp. Home Equity
Loan Trust 2007-HE1 Asset Backed Pass-Through Certificates, MERSCORP
Holdings, Inc., and Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc.’s Motion to
Dismiss Corrected Second Amended Complaint (Dkt. 61) is GRANTED;
(5) Defendant Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is dismissed from this
matter; and
(6) That this matter is therefore dismissed in its entirety.

s/Terrence G. Berg
TERRENCE G. BERG
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Dated: March 28, 2017
Certificate of Service
I hereby certify that this Order was electronically submitted on March 28, 2017,
using the CM/ECF system, which will send notification to each party.
By: s/A. Chubb
Case Manager
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