ADDITIONAL CASES U.S. Bank National Association, as Trustee for GSAMP Trust 2007-HE2, Plaintiff v. Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company, et al., Defendants; 19-cv-2307 OPINION & ORDER Before the Court in these two related cases is the motion for partial summary judgment filed by Plaintiff U.S. Bank National Association (“U.S. Bank”). U.S. Bank serves as the trustee of two trusts that pool thousands of mortgage loans used to back residential mortgage-backed securities (“RMBS”). Those loans were underwritten by the loans’ sponsor, Goldman Sachs Mortgage Company (“GSMC”) and were deposited into the trusts by GS Mortgage Securities Corp. (“GSMSC”). U.S. Bank filed this suit against the Defendants (collectively, “Goldman”) after it discovered that many of the loans in the trusts allegedly failed to meet the applicable underwriting standards. The Court in a prior Opinion & Order held that U.S. Bank’s claims could proceed and that it could seek damages for Goldman’s breach of its representations and warranties. The present motion asks the Court to decide whether U.S. Bank may prove liability and damages at trial by extrapolating from a statistically significant sample of the total loans. Goldman argues that such proof is incompatible with the governing contracts or, at least, that the contracts do not unambiguously permit sampling as required to grant U.S. Bank’s motion at this stage. For the following reasons, the Court DENIES U.S. Bank’s motion. I. Background A. Factual background The following facts are drawn from the parties’ statements and counter-statements made pursuant to Local Civil Rule 56.1. See U.S. Bank Reply to 56.1 Statement, Dkt. No. 137 (hereinafter, “U.S. Bank 56.1″ and “Goldman 56.1″).1 In February 2007, Goldman entered into two Pooling and Service Agreements (collectively, “the PSA”) with U.S. Bank to securitize a pool of mortgages into two trusts, Goldman Sachs Alternative Mortgage Products (“GSAMP”) Trust 2007-HE1 and GSAMP 2007- HE2 (collectively, “the trusts”), for sale as RMBSs. U.S. Bank 56.1
1-3. U.S. Bank was appointed trustee of the trusts. Id. 4. In an arrangement typical of RMBS transactions, GSMC acted as the sponsor of the trusts and acquired approximately 8,500 individual loans, worth approximately $1.7 billion, and GSMSC acted as depositor and conveyed the loans to the trusts. Id.
