Category: Business Torts

Defendant Bank Not Liable for Permitting Judgment Debtor to Transfer Over $700,000 from Accounts

The Citation to Discover Assets to a Third Party or “third-party citation”  allows a judgment creditor to serve a citation on a third-party –  a bank, for instance – who holds property of the judgment debtor and attach that property until the court orders the property released.  See 735 ILCS 5/2-1402(f)(1). 

The third-party citation prohibits the citation respondent from allowing any transfer or other disposition of debtor’s property pending further order of court or termination of the citation. 

When a bank is the third-party citation respondent, the creditor serves the citation upon the bank (either by personal service or certified mail) and upon receipt of the citation, the bank must freeze the debtor’s account until the court enters an order dismissing the citation or releasing the account. 

What’s simultaneously enticing (to a creditor) and sinister (to a debtor) about third-party citation practice is that the creditor doesn’t have to notify the debtor of the third-party citation until 3 business days have passed. 735 ILCS 5/2-1402(b).  This makes it next to impossible for a debtor to deplete his bank account(s) and hide funds – something which could easily happen if he caught wind of a creditor’s attempts to seize his accounts. 

Mendez v. Republic Bank, 2013 WL 3821532 (7th Cir. 2013), examines whether a bank that unfreezes the wrong bank accounts (and allows a judgment debtor to transfer hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process) can be liable to the judgment creditor for violating a citation’s restraining provisions. 

The Court affirmed the trial court’s finding that the bank was not liable to the plaintiff.

The plaintiff won a judgment and froze some 22 separate accounts of the corporate judgment debtor.  After several of the banks moved to quash various citations, the district court judge entered an order requiring that all bank accounts except for three (3) specified accounts be unfrozen. 

The defendant bank released from the citation two of the debtors’ accounts which totalled over $700,000 – all of  which of course was dissipated by the debtors within a few months. 

Plaintiff then moved to refreeze the accounts and to hold the bank liable for violating the citation restraining provision.

The District Judge, while originally siding with plaintiff, reversed herself and found the bank not liable.  The reason: the prior judge’s order requiring the bank to unfreeze accounts was ambiguous “at best” and the bank’s actions were a reasonable response to and interpretation of that order.  *4.

The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the prior judge’s order unfreezing certain accounts was poorly drafted and the defendant bank followed the most reasonable interpretation of the order. 

Acknowledging that under Illinois law, a citation respondent can be liable for any transfer that violates a citation’s restraining provisions (regardless of whether there is intent or contempt), the bank’s actions were reasonable in light of the order’s text.* 11. 

Take-away: In my experience, from a creditor’s standpoint, attaching a corporate debtor’s bank account via a third-party citation is often my only real chance of collecting anything on a judgment.  Any real estate is usually mortgaged to the hilt, and the corporate debtor often lacks sufficient accounts receivable, inventory or personal property to meaningfully make a dent in the judgment amount.  

This case shows why hyper-precision in drafting citation orders is critical in post-judgment enforcement proceedings.  If the order is not drafted by the parties (i.e. it’s prepared by the court) and it’s text is unclear, it is incumbent on a party to file a motion seeking clarification of the order. 

 

Discovery Rule Saves Plaintiffs’ Fraud Claims Against Investment Firm (IL – 2d Dist)

Rasgaitis v. Waterstone Financial Group, Inc., 2012 IL App (2d) 111112-U, a 20-plus page Second District case, presents a detailed synopsis of Illinois agency law, the discovery rule and the “forward-looking” fraud rule (statements of future intent or opinion do not equal fraud).

Facts: The plaintiffs sued the defendant financial services firm and two of its agents for fraud and other tort claims based on defendants’ misrepresentations in connection with selling investment and insurance products to plaintiffs.  (¶ 10).  Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that the claims were time-barred, were non-actionable statements of future intent and was too conclusory to show an agency relationship between the individuals and the investment firm.  The trial court agreed and dismissed all 15 complaint counts.

Held: The Second District reversed the trial court on 14 of the 15 counts (the Court sustained dismissal of negligent supervision claim based on economic loss rule) and held that plaintiffs’ suit was timely based on the discovery rule.

Reasoning:

The discovery rule stops the running of the statute of limitations until a plaintiff knows or should know of his injuries and that the injuries were caused by defendant’s wrongful conduct. (¶ 31).  The rule generally presents a fact question (the question being – when did the plaintiff reasonably know he was injured?) but can be an issue of law where the key facts are undisputed.  Id.

Here, the Court held that while the defendants’ underlying misrepresentations were made in 2005 and 2006, and plaintiffs didn’t sue until 2010, the plaintiffs still pled they didn’t learn of the false promises until 2009 when they learned that the chosen investment vehicle wasn’t as good as advertised.  And since plaintiffs filed suit approximately 14 months after they discovered the defendants’ wrongful conduct (in April 2010) – the complaint was timely under the two and three-year limitations periods for suits based on the sale of life insurance policies and annuities.  ¶¶ 24, 32,  735 ILCS 5/13-214.4, 815 ILCS 5/13.

Fraud Claim Analysis

The Second District also sustained plaintiffs’ fraud claims against defendants’ various Section 2-615 arguments.  While acknowledging that statements of opinion, future intent or financial projections are generally not actionable, the Court focused on the context, not the content of defendants’ statements.  (¶ 43)  The Court held that the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that the defendants’ statements (that plaintiffs’ funds were 100% safe and the investment plan was proven to be successful) were sufficiently factual to state statutory and common law fraud claims under Illinois pleading rules. (¶ 44).

 Agency Analysis

Sustaining the plaintiffs’ agency allegations (and therefore upholding the claims against defendants’ 2-615 motion attack), the Court provided an agency law primer:

– agency is a fiduciary relationship where the principal can control the agent’s conduct and the agent can act on the principal’s behalf;

– an agent’s authority can be actual or apparent;

– actual authority can be express or implied;

– express authority = principal explicitly grants the agent authority to perform a given act;

implied authority = actual authority proved by circumstantial evidence of the agent.  That is, the principal’s conduct reasonably leads the agent to believe that the principal wants the agent to act on the principal’s behalf;

– apparent agency = principal holds out agent as having authority to act on principal’s behalf and a reasonably prudent third party would assume the agent’s authority based on the principal’s conduct.

(¶¶ 49-51).

Applying these rules, the Court held that the plaintiffs pled sufficient facts to establish an agency relationship between the two individual financial agents and the investment firm.  Factors the court considered in its agency calculus included that the defendants used the corporate employer’s offices, business cards and same phone number. ¶ 51.  The Court also cited the fact that plaintiffs had multiple meetings with the individual defendants at the corporate defendant’s office – something that would likely lead a reasonable person to assume that the individual defendants were authorized to act for the corporate principal.  As a result, plaintiffs’ stated colorable claims under Illinois fact-pleading rules.  14 of plaintiff’s 15 claims were reinstated.

Take-aways: The discovery rule applies to common law and consumer fraud claims.  The more detailed a plaintiff’s allegations, the better chance they will survive a limitations defense.  Fraud claims cannot be based on future intent, opinions or financial forecasts unless the statements are sufficiently present-tense and factual.   The case is also instructive on what agency allegations will and won’t satisfy Illinois fact-pleading rules where a plaintiff attempts to impute an agent’s conduct to a corporate principal.

Third Party Corporation Can Enforce Non-Compete After Stock Purchase

ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corporation v. Hubbard, 2013 WL 3242380 (M.D. Fla 2013) considers whether a company that buys the assets of another can enforce the purchased company’s non-compete agreements. 

The defendant was an elevator salesman for a company that was bought by the plaintiff. an elevator company.  The defendant previously signed a non-disclosure (involving intellectual property), non-solicitation and non-compete provision. 

Soon after plaintiff acquired his employer, defendant resigned and joined one of plaintiff’s competitors. Plaintiff sued, claiming a breach of the restrictive covenants. 

Defendant moved to dismiss on the ground that plaintiff wasn’t a party to the employment contract that contained the restrictive covenants.

The Court denied the motion to dismiss.  Citing a 2008 Florida Federal case (Johnson Controls, Inc. v. Rumore, 2008 WL 203575) and Florida’s Business Corporation Act, the court held that where there was a 100% merger or stock transfer, the surviving company (here, plaintiff) assumed all rights and obligations of the predecessor,  including rights under  the challenged non-compete agreement.  *2, Fla. Stat. § 607.1106 (surviving corporation of a merger shall have all the rights, privileges, immunities and powers, and shall be subject to all the duties and liabilities of the merged corporation). 

Here, in light of plaintiff’s stock purchase of defendant’s former employer, plaintiff was a “surviving corporation” and could sue to enforce defendant’s non-compete  

Take-aways:

A third party can enforce employee restrictive covenants where there is an asset purchase by the third party;

Employees should press for terms in their employment contracts that clarify only their direct employer (and not an acquiring company) can hold them to restrictive covenants.