Talk:California judge disqualified from predatory lending case

Review of revision 1741474 [Not ready]

 * There is now another event to report in this story. Is it best try to revise (and retitle) this article or submit a separate article from scratch? This revision / new story will be more newsworthy.  Thanks.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 18:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Either way, be sure you've read all the review comments, and take them on-board. The point about whether all the sources are used may (or may not) be important in deciding whether to start over from scratch.  If there may have been unused sources (but you're not sure), starting over from scratch makes it easy for you to make sure only used sources get on the list.  --Pi zero (talk) 19:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Newsworthy:


 * 1) Merritt v. Mozilo, Bank of America, et al. seems to be unique in its ability to keep alleged predatory lenders in court for 3 years; as noted in the narrative, a review of similar cases found that all had been dismissed in at most 9 months, usually in favor of the banks.
 * 2) This is a second appellate reversal in this case
 * 3) A hearing on this occurred at 9 AM this morning.
 * Sources: All support statements made in the article.  If there is a syntax for including a link from the specific place where each is used, I don't know it.  I'm used to footnotes in Wikipedia articles, but I understand they are not appropriate here.
 * Original Reporting: I need to learn Wikinews style for reporters notes, scoop, etc.  I've been following this case since July when an attorney told me she had searched for other attorneys who had sued the major banks and had kept them in court for longer than a few months.  She found only one case, and that was  an individual representing himself, David Merritt.  I was personally present in the courtroom this morning, as I have been for several previous hearings.  (I have over 600 contributions to Wikimedia projects;  this is my first to Wikinews.)
 * DavidMCEddy (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * More Original Reporting notes:


 * David Merritt actually filed suit first in federal court. That was dismissed.  He appealed.  Oral arguments were heard on that appeal November 9, 2012 in San Francisco;  I attended.  For more on this, see Merritt v. Countrywide at occupy.pbworks.com.
 * I arrived in the courtroom at 8:50 AM. Already present were the bailiff and at least one clerk of the court plus Christopher Espanola, an employee of David Merritt.
 * Merritt is president of a small company called Aakilarose, Inc. that distributes a product called . Merritt previously told me he is not an attorney but has worked extensively with lawyers in the past, and it's clear that he knows how to use a law library and write an acceptable legal brief.  I've heard judges complain that it's difficult to understand his legal briefs, but another attorney told me that most pro se's lose their cases fairly quickly, because judges do not understand their legal arguments.  That hasn't happened to Merritt.
 * David arrived at roughly 8:58 AM. A conference call phone that looked like a Polycom started ringing shortly thereafter.  It was attorney James Goldberg with Bryan Cave's San Francisco office.  I've seen him in other hearings related to David Merritt's predatory lending suits.
 * As mentioned in the text, it was around 9:04 AM when Judge Pierce entered the courtroom. The hearing essentially began with Judge Pierce stating he had checked the case file, and Merritt had filed the Verified Statement of Disqualification on August 17, contrary to the brief filed by attorney Goldberg.  After a minute or two of other comments, Goldberg commented that the fact that the Statement was not in the docket could explain Judge Stoelker's failure to reply within 10 days.  That's important, because the appellate court did not rule on whether Stoelker's previous business dealings with multiple defendants in this case required disqualification;  they only ruled that the 10-day limit was the law.  Judge Pierce, then stated, "That's a stretch."
 * The suspense in the way I wrote the story was real: I didn't know until the end how Judge Pierce would rule.  Judge Pierce asked for and received comments from the attorneys and from Merritt.  Finally, in response to a question from attorney Craft I heard Pierce say that Manoukian would handle further discovery in this case;  Stoelker had previously handled discovery in this case.  There was then a question of the next steps.  Pierce asked Merritt for comments.  Merritt said he didn't remember the details of the appellate ruling.  Pierce then read a portion of the appellate ruling and concluded that since the Santa Clara County Superior Court was disqualifying Stoelker as suggested by the appellate ruling, the stay of all further actions in this case would be lifted effective upon filing the Superior Court's reply to the appellate court.  Pierce than told Merritt that the Superior Court's reply was available from his clerk there, and Merritt should take that to the office of the clerk and file it.  Merritt then got the paper from the clerk, walked out of the courtroom, went down the elevator with Espanola and me, and went to the clerk's office to file the decision as Espanola and I left the courthouse.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 23:58, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * ONE MORE THING: I plan to leave in a few minutes to take a photo of the history Santa Clara County Superior Courthouse.  I plan also to add this photo to the Wikipedia article on that court.  I should have that for this article (to replace the photo of the appellate court -- with a caption mentioning that this is the courthouse of the famous  Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad supreme court decision that is cited as the beginning of Corporate personhood.  I hope to be able to finish this article in a couple of hours.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 00:04, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll keep in mind that a further change to the article is expected tonight.
 * I can tell you right away two clear problems that would be central to a review (and I really hope to review this tonight, tomorrow being a day I'll find it even harder to sneak in Wikinews time). In a review, I'd have to either fix these two problems (if possible within the purview of an independent reviewer), or figure out how to give you useful guidance on fixing them.
 * Newsworthiness should be manifestly obvious from the headline and lede.
 * The headline is getting there, and I'm hopeful I can fix it. It should be a sentence in present tense and preferably active voice, and tell the most important and unique thing.  Right now it's a noun phrase, uses title capitalization instead of sentence capitalization, and although the 'second appellate reversal' part is good, the names of the litigants won't mean anything to readers and at the same time don't communicate what kind of case it is or where in the world it is.  The headline should grab readers' attention.
 * The lede should settle the matter of why the focal news event is of interest (newsworthy). And do it quickly.  Which raises the other problem:
 * The first paragraph is way too long. The best ledes are one sentence, maybe two, and typically 50–80 words, sometimes even shorter.  And in those few words they still succinctly answer the most important of the basic questions and along the way get across why the event is newsworthy (why the reader would want to read more).  It does take practice to learn to write this way.  Sometimes this kind of problem can be fixed by a reviewer, sometimes not.
 * --Pi zero (talk) 00:49, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Title changed to a much more punchy "Judge Disqualified from Predatory Lending Case Involving Former Clients" and a new lede written containing 64 words.  I hope you and others like this.  For background citing the 2006 origin of this story see "Merritt v. Countrywide" at occupy.pbworks.com.  I hop this addresses your concerns in a timely way.  Thanks again. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:40, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Cool. Between the headline and lede, this is suddenly looking very neat; even though I recommend these techniques to people, I'm still often amazed by how much leverage the headline and, especially, lede can have in making a news article work.  There are a few stylistic points I'm hoping to clear up before I turn in tonight.  I know, unfortunately, I won't be able to do a full review tonight; I'm not sharp enough, at about 10:30pm local time after a long and hectic day (all the family home for christmas).  If someone else doesn't pick it up in the meantime, I'll try to sneak it in sometime tomorrow, without the family noticing I'm reviewing on christmas day :-).  --Pi zero (talk) 03:32, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Sourcing query
I've inquired on the reporter's user talk after any possible redundant corroboration of Monday's developments. Bearing in mind that this is a court ruling we're being asked to publish based solely on OR of a newcomer. Reporter's earned reputation on sister projects is obviously of paramount importance here, but if we've no other corroboration at all it's going to place an awfully heavy burden on that reputation. --Pi zero (talk) 04:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * In the following I will duplicate the article with additional notes on multiple sources or lack thereof for each assertion. Regarding "Reporter's earned reputation on sister projects", this article is putting me over 640 total contributions to Wikimedia.  574 are for enwiki.  26 are for commonswiki.  The rest are correcting typos or syntax errors in Wikipedia or Wikinews in Spanish, French, German or Ladino.  I also have a PhD in Statistics, 2 books, 3 patents and 30 published articles in technical journals.  I'm keenly aware of and deeply appreciate the Wikimedia standards for documentation.

David and Salma Merritt received a favorable ruling, in time for Christmas, in the disqualification of California Judge James L. Stoelker from further decisions in their predatory lending case.


 * I just called David Merritt. He said he would scan it tomorrow morning and email it to me.  I should have asked him if I could take a photo of it this morning as we walked out of the courtroom together after the hearing;  next time.
 * As I previously indicated, I was referred to Merritt v. Mozilo et al. by an attorney last July; she found him, because his was the only case she could find that went after a major predatory lender and was able to keep them in court for more than 9 months.  Before I invested much time with him and this case, I did a serious web search to see what I could find, good, bad, or ugly.  I continue asking questions, probing to convince myself that his story seems to hang together.
 * I've organized much of the documentation I've acquired on his case at

They claim that Stoelker consistently ruled improperly in favor of his former clients,, , , and other defendants in their case.


 * A discussion of this is available at, cited above, and in links therein including . The Merritts' "Verified Statement of Disqualification of Judge James Stoelker by Plaintiff Salma Merritt" is available at ;  This and all other documents related to this case are available in theory from the clerk of the Santa Clara County Superior Court.  A summary of the hearings and documents filed in this case is available at .  However, one either needs to request a copy of a specific document or physically go there, wait in line, request the documents you want to see, wait and maybe you will get a chance to see what you want.  Most of the documents I've gotten from Merritt, though I've gotten a few documents as "preliminary rulings" posted by judges on their web site the day before a hearing.  The copies I've received from Merritt look authentic, and what I've read therein seems consistent with what I've gotten from other sources.

Yesterday at 9:14 AM local time, Stoekler was recused on a technicality.


 * With luck, I'll get tomorrow a copy of Judge Pierce's ruling this morning. However, unless it differs from what I heard in court this morning, it will basically agree to comply with the appellate court's ruling .  I got this document from David Merritt.  However, I heard this morning Judge Pierce read the second paragraph of page 2:  "If respondent court complies with the alternative writ, this court will promptly discharge the alternative writ and summarily deny the petition as moot."

The Merritts claim they were tricked in 2006 into signing loan documents containing blank spaces that were subsequently filled in to appear to commit them to roughly four times the obligation they had agreed to.
 * I have not seen a copy of the loan documents containing blank spaces, etc. However, copies of Countrywide ads from 2005 plus the "Good Faith Estimate" the Merritts received are available linked from the first paragraph of the "Merritt v Countrywide" web site at "occupy.pbworks.com" cited above.  The loan document in question is cited in their .  However, the docket for this case cited above mentions "Cv 3rd Amended Complaint" as item 0247-000 filed 04/15/2011, the same date as on the "3rd Amended Complaint" I got from David Merritt and placed on the web site as noted above.

A review of similar cases filed by individuals in California found that all had been settled in at most 9 months, nearly always in favor of the banks.


 * I got this from two sources. First, attorney Robin Yeamans told me she had looked for cases like this, and found only the Merritts' case.  Second David Merritt told me that before he filed suit, he went to courthouses from Sacramento to Los Angeles looking for similar cases.  If this is not good enough, we should adjust the wording or something;  clearly we don't have time now to do a complete review like this and still have a news article.

Merritt v. Mozilo has continued in the courts for much longer, celebrating its third anniversary last Saturday.


 * This is directly verifiable from the docket cited above:.

The Merritts' claims are consistent with published statements by, former Executive Vice President of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide, that fraud was endemic to certain parts of Countrywide.


 * This can be directly verified from and from the 60 Minutes interview cited therein.

Theirs was the only case heard in Department 9 that morning in recognition of Christmas.


 * I was there. The only people there between 8:50 and 9:15 AM today were court employees, David Merritt, Christopher Espanola, and me.

That hearing was scheduled, because the Sixth District of the (case number H038883) required the  to (a) give all parties an opportunity to be heard regarding the possible disqualification of Judge Stoelker and (b) reply to the appellate court by December 26. This appellate ruling was only issued on November 26,


 * The appellate ruling is available at, as noted above.

and Judge Mark H. Pierce did not schedule the required hearing until December 12. The notice for this hearing required parties to file responses ten days before, which meant that the parties only had two days to prepare their replies.



On August 16, the Merritts learned that Judge Stoelker had represented defendants in this case on numerous occasions before he was appointed to the bench in December 2010


 * I remember personal communications with attorney Robin Yeamans on this date when she found that Stoelker had represented several of the defendants in this case in numerous other cases prior to coming to the bench in December 2010. I learned from Robin how to search the web site of the Santa Clara County Superior Court for this kind of information, and I verified for myself what she said.  Later that evening, David Merritt turned that information into the "Verified Statement of Disqualification" is cited above and at .  I was also present in the courtroom the following morning as Merritt served Judge Stoelker with the said Statement.

and had not disclosed this fact to the Merritts as seemingly required by the California Code of Judicial Ethics.


 * This is documented in the said "Verified Statement of Disqualification".

The next day they filed a Verified Statement of Disqualification asking Stoekler to recuse himself.


 * I was there and I witnessed that interaction. I keep a diary, and I'm sure that will document that I attended on that day.

The California Code of Civil Procedure (CCP) 170.3(c)(3) and (4) [confirmed in the 1988 appellate decision in Lewis v. Superior Court] give a judge ten days to respond to to such a motion. Stoelker replied on the eleventh day.



"All Rise" was heard at 9:04 AM local time yesterday morning, whereupon Judge Pierce entered the courtroom. Attending by phone were attorneys James Goldberg representing Bank of America and Brian Craft representing First American Title. David Merritt was present representing himself. Goldberg had filed a brief asserting that the Merritts' Verified Statement of Disqualification was served upon Judge Stoelker on August 17 but was not filed, as witnessed by the fact that it was not listed on the docket. Judge Pierce reported that he had checked the files and found that this Statement had indeed been filed, and he didn't know why it was not on the docket. Attorney Goldberg suggested that the fact that the Statement was not on the docket may have contributed to Judge Stoelker's failure to respond within the ten day limit. Judge Pierce replied, "That's a stretch."

Attorney Craft asked about next steps, since all action in this case had been stayed by the appellate court pending resolution of this issue. Judge Pierce then replied that Judge Manoukian would be handling discovery in this case, replacing Judge Stoelker in that capacity. He further stated that a reply to the appellate court had been prepared concurring with the appellate court's disqualification of Judge Stoelker and asked Mr. Merritt to retrieve that order from the clerk in the courtroom and file it as usual with the clerk's office. He also noted that this action would lift the stay. Other actions in this case could now proceed with the next steps being scheduled January 22, 2013, or later.


 * This is all directly from my memory and my notes during the hearing.

This is the second appellate reversal of decisions by this superior court in this case. The first reversal came on December 19, 2011, when the appellate court reinstated as a defendant.


 * This can be found by Googling for "Merritt v. Wells Fargo". The first match when I did this just now was.

Appellate reversals are not uncommon. A 2006 report by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics found 43% of post-trial appeals were dismissed and only a third of the remaining 57% &mdash; 19% of all appeals &mdash; were decided in favor of the appellant. In other words, almost one out of five post-trial appeals produced at least a partial reversal. However, most appeals are made after a trial. Pretrial appeals are quite rare.



Review of revision 1750017 [Not ready]

 * Thanks for the feedback. I revised the first paragraph to shorten it.  This version mentions most of the major parties, but not the appellate court (who).  It mentions what:  Judge disqualified in predatory lending case involving former clients.  Why: It's not completely clear on this point, but I'm hoping that most people would smell a rat in a judge ruling on a case involving his former clients.  Where:  Santa Clara County, CA, and its Superior Court in particular.  When:  9:14 AM yesterday.  How:  Exceptional Christmas Eve hearing not mentioned until later.  Does this work?
 * I apologize, but this is my first Wikinews article, and I obviously still can't judge well what makes a good lede. Thanks for your review.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 12:34, 25 December 2012 (UTC)


 * At the suggestion of Pi zero, I've put a few notes in line DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:18, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Notes by reviewer

 * When a public document from a government organization (say, a court) is available here via a site that reposts it, to the best of my understanding of the principles involved, the reposting site is the publisher while the government organization is the author or syndicate (cf. WN:SG). The reason for the indirection being, the trust-worthiness of the reposting site factors into review based on the source, so it needs to be mentioned in our citation.  I adjusted maybe one or two citations like that in going through the sources.  However, two of the listed source citations, I'm under the impression were actually reposted by the author of this article.  In effect, the author of the article would be the publisher, and that doesn't work for me.  It seems to me we should treat those as part of the OR, and cite them on the talk page.  So here are the two citations, and I'm removing them from the article Sources section.
 * --Pi zero (talk) 03:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * --Pi zero (talk) 03:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * --Pi zero (talk) 03:03, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * In the sourcing notes earlier on this page, there's a passage "This can be directly verified from Eileen Foster and from the 60 Minutes interview cited therein." Note that nothing can be verified from a Wikipedia article; Wikipedia itself (wisely) acknowledges this.  The 60 Minutes interview should have been cited directly, and listed in the Sources section of the article (you'll notice I'm not adding it there myself; I admit to being pretty overwhelmed by the size of this review, which tbh probably didn't help me get to it sooner).  --Pi zero (talk) 03:46, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I have been unable to verify the following passage; I believe my difficulty is because the cited document, in which it may well be contained, is 101 pages long. If you're going to send the reviewer to something like that, you really need to tell them where in the document to find the information.
 * They claim that Countrywide representatives tricked them into signing loan documents that were subsequently altered to appear to commit them to roughly four times the obligation they had agreed to.
 * --Pi zero (talk) 03:50, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Here's a WN:NPOV violation. (I may be able to fix it myself).  Note that Wikinews NPOV is not the same as Wikipedia NPOV.  Core to Wikinews NPOV is attributing claims rather than presenting them as fact.  A point of contention in a court case should not be presented as fact in a Wikinews article; if it's a point of contention, one attributes it to someone who claims it, or one attributes it to a source such as a database that indicates or, or the like.
 * On August 16, the Merritts learned that Judge Stoelker had represented defendants ...
 * --Pi zero (talk) 04:25, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, given the judge's answer (the one that was a day too late), I guess I'm okay with this one. --Pi zero (talk) 06:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Another NPOV violation is the bit in the article about seemingly violating the code of ethics. That's analysis: it's opinion, so would have to be attributed to someone.  --Pi zero (talk) 05:49, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Review of revision 1751781 [Not ready]

 * I apologize for not providing a clearer reference for claim about "tricked them into signing loan documents ..."; I'll get that tomorrow after I'm up for the day.
 * Since it's gone this long, can I send emails to defense attorneys and the court inviting their review, promising to hold it until a certain time? If yes, how much time should I give them -- and any suggested wording?  If I don't hear from you, I'll apologize for the rush, saying that the exact time of publication has yet to be determined, but it could be as soon as (say) 4 hours from when I send the email, but not likely longer than 24 hours.  ??? Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 11:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm unclear why you want to contact these people. Are you hoping for some comment, as added OR?


 * As far as the current content is concerned, of course, we don't need their feedback. We're the fourth estate, and not just any outlet of the fourth estate but one that gets compliments from readers on our neutrality.  If an article passes our review criteria, there isn't some other criterion also needed to publish, that's it.  There are about four or so action items here &mdash; see my review comments, and for perspective also the detailed history of what I changed during review &mdash; and if we get those taken care of, I'd do a sanity check and, likely, publish.


 * There is some OR in this, not enough to make it retain freshness for weeks (as an interview might), but enough that in the next day or so I'm not uncomfortable. --Pi zero (talk) 14:45, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I just wrote Goldberg before I read your remarks on this. First, it was fairly quick to do.  Second, I felt a need as part of trying to get both perspectives.  Third, I wanted to see what kind of reaction we might get if any.  In particular, it's not generally smart to pick fights with attorneys ;-)  However, sometimes it may be unavoidable.  I don't want you and others in the Wikimedia Foundation to get sued later without having had a chance to think it through first.  They could threaten to sue knowing they would lose if it ever got to court but also knowing the Wikimedia Foundation might not want to devote the resources required to pursue it.  The mainstream commercial media have done a lot of that, as documented in  .  No unpleasant surprises.  DavidMCEddy (talk) 17:25, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Additional perspective is great, when one can get it, adds value and all that, it's part of what we want to do as journalists. I'm just saying in this instance, except for one POV problem I noted in my review comments, I think we're okay (subject always to a final pause for sanity check before publication); added value... adds value.  I certainly don't mean to discourage getting multiple perspectives.


 * As for being sued, if our article is accurate and neutral they've go no valid reason to do so. (Also no invalid reason, that I see.)  Nor would it be the first time someone tried to push us around.  There's a positive correlation between becoming a dedicated Wikinewsie, and being passionate about freedom of the press.  --Pi zero (talk) 17:51, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I believe the short lede now on the article, per Bddpaux's edit, should have something like "on a technicality" or some such added to it. Perhaps you as the reporter could do that? It seems fine to me to wait for the second paragraph to mention the reason for the request for recusal, but the fact that it was a technicality seems to me to be of the essence. --Pi zero (talk) 18:19, 27 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Will do after I press "Save Page" ;-) [I'm just recovering from an edit conflict ;-]
 * Please see my replies to your concerns in the "peer_reviewed" box above. (I got up at 9 AM Pacific time, and I've been working on this since.  After writing too much, I found what I hope would respond briefly and hopefully compellingly to your concerns -- then deleted most of what I had written ;-) Thanks for your investment in this. DavidMCEddy (talk) 19:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)