Housing Clinic Argues Before Vermont Supreme Court

On Dec. 4, 2025, the Vermont Supreme Court denied rehearing in Bank of New York Mellon v. Quinn, affirming its Nov. 7 decision requiring mortgage servicers to show that they have a legal right to foreclose at the start of foreclosure proceedings. The Court’s decision sided with arguments advanced in an amicus brief by the Housing Clinic at Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. According to the clinic, this decision prevents mortgage providers from filing first and papering over their poor recordkeeping later.   

With the permission of the homeowner in the case, the Court granted the clinic oral argument time, and third-year law student Dylan Shapiro argued the case in Montpelier before the Court in October 2025.

The clinic represented amici Vermont Legal Aid and the National Consumer Law Center, arguing that mortgage servicers cannot foreclose on homeowners without showing clear legal entitlement to do so at the time they filed their complaint. The clinic’s briefing and argument drew on the clinic’s and amici’s extensive experience representing homeowners in mortgage litigation and state court appellate advocacy. Besides arguing several appeals for clients in Connecticut, the Clinic has filed amicus briefs in seven other states’ appellate courts: California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Vermont.

The Court adopted many of the arguments advanced in the clinic’s brief, crediting the clinic’s argument that federal courts have incorporated standing doctrine to require that a foreclosing plaintiff be the holder or assignee of a note before initiating foreclosure proceedings. It also adopted the clinic’s argument that “other states similarly require foreclosure plaintiffs to establish standing . . . at the outset of the litigation,” noting several of the examples highlighted by amici in their brief.

At oral argument, the clinic pushed back on the plaintiff’s request that the Court dismiss the case without prejudice to refiling, which would have given the mortgage servicer a blank check to foreclose on the homeowner again despite the servicer’s initial errors, according to the clinic. The Court adopted amici’s request that the lower court decide the issue, giving the lower court an opportunity to consider the mortgage servicer’s litigation conduct before deciding whether to allow it to continue foreclosure proceedings.

The clinic is grateful that the Court affirmed that mortgage servicers, like all other plaintiffs, must show that they are legally entitled to initiate legal proceedings. The clinic believes this will protect Vermont homeowners from the severe financial and emotional harms that the foreclosure process entails. Yale Law School students Cris Guevera-Plunkett ’26, Ndeye Ndione ’27, Sophia Perez ’27, and Dylan Shapiro ’26 worked on the brief, along with Clinical Professor of Law Anika Singh Lemar and Clinical Lecturer in Law Jeffrey Gentes, co-supervisors of the Housing Clinic.