Another Kangaroo Court? Why Step Aside in One Case but Not Another? Broden’s Sims Ruling Faces Challenge

Seriously, who is this corrupt pinhead? “Judge” Borden? Former Senator, Former Public Defender, and Former Chairman of Democrat Party, who threw his former law partner Rod Sniadecki under the bus. He is not ethical, his kids went to the best private schools so typical of a Democrat, Government Elitist; and his wife served in local government for pay, too. How do these people sleep, we know they are rich off government. Sick humans and yet protected. He was only elected because his republican oppenent faced a fake legal ethics case and was subjected to orchastrated fake news by the South Bend Tribune. FACTS MATTER. TRUTH MATTER. LAW NEEDS TO MATTER AGAIN.

Hoosier Enquirer | News analysis

SOUTH BEND — St. Joseph Circuit Judge John E. Broden dismissed Mario and Tiffany Sims’s challenge to foreclosure-sale proceedings on October 27. But Mario Sims contends a more fundamental question remained unresolved: whether Broden was entitled to decide the complaint after refusing a request for a different judge.

Sims says Broden granted a change of judge in the Corbett litigation involving him, then denied an unopposed change-of-judge motion in the foreclosure case while leaving an unopposed request for a change of county undecided. Those circumstances, he says, prompted an October 26 petition for mandamus and prohibition in the Indiana Supreme Court.

The next day, Broden dismissed the complaint.

Sims also challenges the dismissal motion’s timing and says Broden granted it without a hearing. In a message supplied for this article, he urged readers to examine the two venue motions, arguing that the filings raise questions about Broden’s judicial integrity.

The October 27 order establishes the dismissal and the reasons Broden gave. The venue motions, the Corbett change-of-judge order, the dismissal motion and the Supreme Court petition were not supplied for this review. Whether the dismissal motion was legally untimely, whether a hearing was required and whether Broden was obligated to step aside remain disputed questions.

Nevertheless, the distinction Sims raises is substantial. His argument concerns the judge’s authority to decide the merits, beyond his disagreement with the result.

The foreclosure case, number 71D04-1003-MF-000164, names The Bank of New York Mellon, formerly The Bank of New York, as trustee for certificateholders of CWABS Inc., Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2005-BC5, as plaintiff. John Tiffany and others, including the Simses, are defendants.

Broden’s order addresses the Simses’ verified complaint seeking to vacate a request for sale and asserting fraud, conspiracy, debt-collection violations and related claims. It grants the dismissal motion of Andrew L. Kraemer, Kenneth W. Bach, Erik E. Blumberg and Johnson, Blumberg and Associates LLC.

Broden concluded that the issues had already been litigated and decided, that the complaint improperly attacked final judgments and appellate decisions, and that it failed to state a legally sufficient claim. He cited Dominiack Mechanical, Inc. v. Dunbar for the Trial Rule 12(B)(6) standard.

The order describes the dismissal motion as fully briefed. It does not address the venue motions, identify the particular earlier judgments supporting its conclusion or explain how those judgments dispose of the individual claims.

That leaves an unsatisfying public explanation for a sweeping result. A reference to finality does not answer a challenge to the authority of the judge invoking it.

Indiana Trial Rule 76 provides procedures for changing judges and counties, subject to timing requirements and other limits. The absence of opposition does not, by itself, establish entitlement to either change. The county-venue request requires grounds that the court finds established.

Sims’s contention therefore turns on the motions themselves: when they were filed, which provisions they invoked, whether the applicable requirements were satisfied and why Broden treated the change-of-judge requests differently across the two cases.

A prior decision to step aside does not automatically establish disqualification in every later case involving the same person. An automatic change of judge also differs from recusal based on bias or conflict. But if the Corbett decision rested on circumstances also present in the foreclosure litigation, the different treatment deserves a clear explanation.

The Supreme Court proceeding could have consequences for the dismissal. If the Court determines that Broden should have relinquished authority before October 27, that determination could support setting aside subsequent substantive rulings. The precise effect would depend on the Court’s findings and directions.

Filing an original-action petition does not itself transfer the foreclosure case or automatically stay proceedings. Indiana’s original-action rules provide for an issued emergency writ to halt proceedings. That distinction does not dispose of Sims’s separate argument that his change-of-judge motion already required Broden to stop deciding the merits.

Meanwhile, a renewed sheriff’s-sale request presents another question. In correspondence supplied by Sims and attributed to county attorney Phil Garrett, Garrett said the plaintiff had been asked to address objections concerning the order with the court but instead submitted another sale request. Garrett said outside counsel for the county would ask the court to determine whether that request was valid.

Garrett also represented that no sale would occur before the court ruled. That assurance is significant, but the correspondence is not itself a judicial stay. The supplied materials do not establish a current sale date or confirm the filing of the county’s promised motion.

Sims says he and his wife paid $26,000 under a land contract with Tiffany before discovering the property was in foreclosure, then spent years attempting to assume the mortgage.

That history remains his account; the October 27 order does not adjudicate those allegations.

Based on the materials reviewed, the documented development is Broden’s dismissal. Sims reports seeking Supreme Court intervention, but the current disposition of that proceeding has not been independently verified.

The public deserves a record that answers the questions directly: Why was another judge granted in the Corbett case but refused here? What happened to the county-venue request? Was the dismissal motion timely? And what valid order permits a renewed sale?

Broden’s brief ruling answers none of those questions on its face. When the stakes include a family’s home and a challenge to judicial impartiality, a court should provide an explanation people can examine.