## Facts

- Jeana Burns executed a promissory note to Aegis Funding Corporation, secured by a deed of trust on her real property.
- The deed of trust named Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) as beneficiary “solely as nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns.”
- The deed of trust contained an erroneous legal description due to a drafting mistake, though the parties intended to encumber Burns’s actual residence.
- MERS, acting in its stated nominee/beneficiary capacity, executed an assignment of the deed of trust to U.S. Bank, N.A.
- The assignment repeated the same erroneous legal description.
- U.S. Bank sued to reform the deed of trust and the assignment to correct the legal description based on mutual mistake.
- Burns contested U.S. Bank’s right to obtain reformation, arguing MERS lacked authority to assign because MERS was not a party to the promissory note.
- The trial court granted U.S. Bank summary judgment and ordered reformation; Burns appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether U.S. Bank, as assignee, had standing and the right to seek reformation despite Burns’s challenge to MERS’s authority as nominee/beneficiary.
2. Whether the deed of trust and assignment could be reformed to correct the legal description based on mutual mistake.
3. Whether summary judgment was proper because there was no genuine dispute of material fact on intent, mistake, or U.S. Bank’s entitlement to relief.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed the grant of summary judgment for U.S. Bank.
- The court held the deed of trust’s terms authorized MERS to act as nominee/beneficiary for the lender and its successors and assigns, including executing an assignment.
- The court held U.S. Bank, as assignee, had a sufficient interest to seek equitable reformation of the deed of trust and the assignment.
- The court held reformation was warranted because the undisputed evidence showed a mutual mistake as to the legal description and a shared intent to encumber Burns’s property.
- The court held Burns did not identify a genuine issue of material fact; her objections were primarily legal challenges to MERS’s role rather than evidence contradicting intent or mistake.

## Legal Principles

- A deed of trust may contractually confer authority on a nominee/beneficiary (such as MERS) to hold and assign the security instrument for the lender and its successors and assigns, even if the nominee is not a party to the promissory note.
- Reformation is available when a written instrument fails to reflect the parties’ true agreement due to mutual mistake, and the intended agreement and mistake are shown by clear and convincing evidence.
- An assignee of a deed of trust has standing to seek equitable relief, including reformation, to conform the instrument to the parties’ original intent.
- Summary judgment is appropriate when the movant’s properly supported facts are not genuinely disputed and entitle the movant to judgment as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The court upheld summary judgment reforming the deed of trust and assignment to correct an erroneous legal description, concluding that the mistake was mutual and undisputed and that the deed of trust authorized MERS, as nominee/beneficiary, to assign the security instrument to U.S. Bank, giving U.S. Bank standing to obtain reformation.


U.S. Bank, N.A. v. Burns, 406 S.W.3d 495 (Mo. Ct. App. E.D. 2013)