Now UCC Me, Now You Don't: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Ignores the UCC in Requiring Unity of Note and Mortgage for Foreclosure in Eaton v. Fannie Mae

Abstract

On June 22, 2012, in Eaton v. Federal National Mortgage Association, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a trial court ruling and held that an entity must hold both note and mortgage in order to foreclose properly. Because this represented a significant shift in Massachusetts foreclosure law, the court applied its ruling only prospectively. To support its holding, the court relied on common law and statutory justifications. In so doing, the court did not address pertinent sections of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) that could have led to the same outcome. This Comment argues that examining the UCC in the context of mortgage and foreclosure cases could lend clarity to an outmoded and inconsistent area of the law.