Alton woman claims wrongful foreclosure

An Alton woman filed suit against U.S. Bank claiming it foreclosed on her home even though she made payments and could prove it.

Evelyn Casey-Braxton claims she was obligated to pay monthly mortgage payments of $215 until $15,600 was paid in full. She executed her note on Sept. 23, 1992.

According to the complaint, for the first time throughout the entirety of the mortgage, Casey-Braxton fell two months in arrears on her payments in May and secured financial assistance from the Urban League of Alton to bring her arrearage current.

She claims she paid three months of payments at the Alton branch and was issued a receipt indicating her mortgage was current.

Casey-Braxton claims despite her payment, she was served a foreclosure complaint on July 25.

She claims the bank had a duty to exercise ordinary care for her property interests but in derogation of its duty negligently foreclosed on her home located at 1114 Central Avenue in Alton.

Casey-Braxton claims U.S. bank negligently failed to exercise the degree of commercial care and scrutiny in its operation as a financial lender.

She also claims despite being notified immediately that the bank's attorneys wrongfully filed the foreclosure, the bank negligently refused to immediately dismiss the complaint.

"Defendant, despite acknowledging to plaintiff that it had lost plaintiff's checks in its inter-office mail system, negligently failed and refused to immediately take steps to correct its own error, and even advised plaintiff that it was her responsibility to be sure that the checks were followed through defendant's inter-office mail system," the complaint states.

According to Casey-Braxton, she sustained damage and has and will become obligated to incur substantial and ongoing legal fees to correct U.S. Bank's errors and omissions, incurred an adverse credit rating by all the major credit reporting agencies and suffered shame and humiliation as a result of the bank's alleged misconduct.

"The complaint to foreclose mortgage was maliciously brought without probable cause and despite knowing that there was no basis for the allegations in the foreclosure complaint, defendant did fail to rectify its obvious error and the expense and embarrassment to plaintiff," the complaint states.

She also claims she has lost her homeowner's insurance coverage since her insurer has not received its premium payments.

Represented by Robert Gregory of East Alton, Casey-Braxton is seeking damages in excess of $100,000, plus costs of the suit.

"Because malicious prosecution took place willfully, wantonly and with malice, plaintiff demands punitive damages in a further sum in excess of $50,000 to punish defendant."

06 L 1028