Legal fight between Longbridge and Mutual of Omaha continues

In the ongoing lawsuit between two leading reverse mortgage lenders over allegations of improper advertising practices, both parties recently conferred in front of a magistrate judge, but did not reach a settlement.

That’s according to the court docket reviewed by HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily (RMD).

The lawsuit between Longbridge Financial and Mutual of Omaha Mortgage continues to play out in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, initially brought by Longbridge late last year over the alleged advertising practices of Mutual of Omaha. This is the second time that court documents have confirmed that discussions regarding a possible settlement had taken place.

The discussions occurred during what is called an “early neutral evaluation conference” on Tuesday, June 3 in front of Magistrate Judge Valerie E. Torres. Such a conference is designed to strengthen direct communication between two parties in a case, allow a “neutral expert” to assess its merits, identify or clarify core dispute issues, assist with the discovery process and facilitate settlement discussions if so requested by the parties.

“ENE aims to position the case for early resolution by settlement, dispositive motion or trial,” according to an outline of the practice by the U.S. District Court for California’s Northern district. “It may serve as a cost-effective substitute for formal discovery and pretrial motions. Although settlement is not the major goal of ENE, the process can lead to settlement.”

But such a settlement was not reached this time, according to the record of the court docket reviewed by RMD. Following the neutral evaluation conference, a case management conference took place with a scheduling order to reportedly follow, the docket entry said.

These conferences arrive several weeks after the last major update in the case: Judge Dana M. Sabraw ruled that some of Longbridge’s claims in a request for a preliminary injunction warranted limited relief, having found that “the law and facts clearly favor some of Longbridge’s claims.”

Longbridge filed the suit last fall, alleging that a series of advertising websites are deceptive, and did not clearly specify to consumers that Mutual of Omaha had control over one of them.

A couple of months after Longbridge’s initial filing but prior to Mutual of Omaha’s first substantive response to the allegations, both companies reportedly attempted to settle a first time.

A Mutual of Omaha attorney noted last December that the companies were “actively pursuing early mediation efforts aimed at narrowing the issues or achieving a resolution without further litigation or escalation,” according to a court filing. But the company responded to the allegations the following month and the trial has been progressing steadily since then.

Mutual of Omaha also filed an initial counterclaim at that time against Longbridge. The company later amended it by focusing the scope of its counterclaim and sought to restrict Longbridge from “engaging in unlawful and unfair conduct with respect to advertising on websites and lodging complaints with private third parties.”