The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 had a severe effect on the national economy and the economy of this state, an effect from which the operations of the Appellate Division, Second Department were certainly not immune. Now, more than 12 years later, the mortgage foreclosure litigation spawned by that crisis continues to have an enormous impact on the work of our court. First and foremost among the enduring legacies of the crisis is the sheer volume of appeals that have been generated by the explosion in residential mortgage foreclosures occasioned by the crisis. This steady stream of litigation has also required our court to grapple with legal concepts that previously seemed settled, but now must be applied to new methods of handling mortgages that have been adopted by lenders.

Foreclosure matters have come to consume a large share of our court’s resources. The steady and dramatic increase in the number of foreclosure matters our court is called upon to adjudicate continues unabated. In 2008, our court decided roughly 40 appeals arising out of mortgage foreclosure actions. That number has now increased to the point where mortgage foreclosure matters represent roughly one-third of our docket. Our court was already the busiest appellate court in the nation, handling roughly 65% of the statewide Appellate Division caseload, instead of the 25% it was originally designed to handle. The exponential acceleration in the number of foreclosure appeals has contributed substantially to our already daunting caseload.