State ex rel. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n v. Hon. Warren R. McGraw (Signed Opinion)
Annotate this CaseCertain trustees registered trust deed assignments securing the payment of a promissory note for the purchase of residential real estate with Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) rather than recording the trust deed assignments in county record books. Wyoming County and all other similarly situated West Virginia Counties (“Wyoming County”) filed a putative class action against the trustees, alleging that the recording of trust deed assignments in county record books is required by law. The circuit court denied the trustees’ motion to dismiss, ruling that trust deed assignments are required to be publicly recorded and that Wyoming County was entitled to show that the trustees had been unjustly enriched by using MERS to record the assignments. The trustees challenged that ruling in this original proceeding in prohibition. The Supreme Court granted the writ, holding that the circuit court exceeded its jurisdiction in denying the trustees’ motion to dismiss, as West Virginia law does not require that the assignment of a trust deed must be recorded in the office of the clerk of the county commission.
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