Summary
dismissing appeal from court's denial of motion to reopen foreclosure judgment because of legislative policy promoting finality of foreclosure judgments
Summary of this case from TBF Financial, LLC v. GregoireOpinion
Docket No. 2000-537, December Term, 2000.
December 28, 2000.
Appealed from Windsor Superior Court, Docket No. 561-11-99 Wrcv.
Appellee Citibank, N.A.'s motion to dismiss the above appeal is granted. Appellee was awarded a default judgment of foreclosure against appellant Debra L. Groshens in February 2000, with the redemption period to expire in August 2000. In September 2000, after the redemption period had expired, appellant filed a motion to reopen the judgment. The superior court denied the motion, and appellant filed a notice of appeal. Appellee asks this Court to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because appellant never sought permission to appeal from the judgment of foreclosure. See 12 V.S.A. § 4601 ("When a judgment is for foreclosure of mortgage, permission of the court shall be required for review."); V.R.C.P. 80.1(m) (permission to appeal from foreclosure judgment shall be filed within ten days of entry of judgment); Denlinger v. Mudgett, 151 Vt. 208, 210-11 (1989) (compliance with § 4601 "is required in order to give this Court jurisdiction to review"). We agree with appellee that the legislative policy of promoting the finality of foreclosure judgments would be thwarted if § 4601 could be circumvented simply by filing a motion to reopen weeks or months after the entry of the foreclosure judgment. This is particularly true in situations such as this where the redemption period has expired. Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
BY THE COURT:
_______________________________________ Jeffrey L. Amestoy, Chief Justice
_______________________________________ John A. Dooley, Associate Justice
_______________________________________ James L. Morse, Associate Justice
_______________________________________ Denise R. Johnson, Associate Justice
_______________________________________ Marilyn S. Skoglund, Associate Justice