U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. GreenPoint Mortgage Funding Inc.

*1  Defendant appeals from the orders of the Supreme Court, New York County (Marcy S. Friedman, J.), entered January 28, 2016, which, to the extent appealed from, granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the defense of lack of standing, and denied defendant’s motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint for lack of standing.*2

KARLA MOSKOWITZ, J.In this appeal, we are asked to decide whether plaintiff U.S. Bank National Association may pursue its claims for breach of contract against defendant (GreenPoint). We find that although the relevant contracts are unambiguous, the record presents an issue of fact as to whether U.S. Bank has standing to sue under the HELOC (home equity lines of credit) agreements. The record demonstrates as a matter of law, however, that U.S. Bank does not have standing to sue under the CES (closed-end seconds) agreement.The Background to the LitigationGreenPoint was in the business of originating, acquiring, and selling residential mortgage loans; it also sold loans to financial institutions for securitization. Between September 2005 and July 2006, GreenPoint sold multiple pools of loans as part of a $1.83 billion securitization; in connection with that securitization, GreenPoint Mortgage Fund Trust 2006-HE1 (the Trust) issued Home Equity Loan Asset-Backed Notes, Series 2006-HE1 (the notes). The notes are residential mortgage-backed securities backed by the 30,000 residential mortgage loans that GreenPoint had originated.In general, sales of loans involved two types of contracts, a flow agreement and a purchase price and term letter (PPTL). Initially, to govern the general structure of the transfer, GreenPoint entered into flow agreements, general agreements setting forth GreenPoint’s loan warranties and agreement to repurchase loans that materially breached the warranties. The flow agreements, however, did not actually effectuate any loan sales. Rather, to actually sell the loans, GreenPoint entered into the second type of contract — namely, the PPTL. The PPTLs supplied specific terms governing individual trades under the flow agreements — for example, the price and anticipated closing date for the particular trade.