The case involved a homeowner (Henrietta Eaton) who lost her house in Massachusetts via a foreclosure sale after defaulting on her mortgage.

Eaton then filed a suit against Fannie Mae in Massachusetts Superior Court alleging that the record holder of the mortgage did not also hold the promissory note at the time of foreclosure.

asserted that although the statutes and case law from the nineteenth century implied that the mortgagee should also hold the note at time of sale, the court would not apply the requirement of unity retroactively to June 22, 2012, but only prospectively from that date because the law was "ambiguous" and a retroactive application would have voided thousands of titles.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "[t]he Eaton case attracted national attention.

"[2] The Boston Globe also quoted Professor Levitin, who stated that this "means that past foreclosures cannot be reopened because of this case, so the financial services industry just dodged billions in liability for wrongful foreclosures and evictions, and the title insurance industry did as well.