Shortened ‘Arb Award’ Rejection Deadline Upheld Against Constitutional Attack – IL Appeals Court

The First District appeals court recently nixed a plaintiff’s constitutional challenge to a local rule’s arbitration rejection deadline.  The opinion’s upshot is clear: when a supreme court rule conflicts with a statute, the rule wins.

The plaintiff in McBreen v. Mercedes-Benz, USA, LLC  argued her equal protection and due process rights were violated when a trial court denied her attempt to tardily reject an arbitration award. The case was decided by a single arbitrator under the auspices of the Cook County Law Division Mandatory Arbitration Program (MAP), a two-year pilot program that sends commercial cases with damage claims between $50,000 and $75,00 to mandatory arbitration.

Among other things, the Law Division MAP provides for hearings before a single arbitrator and requires a losing party to reject the award within seven business days. Cook County Cir. Ct. R. 25.1, 25.5, 25.11.

After an arbitrator found for defendants, the plaintiff didn’t reject the award until 30 days later – 23 days too late. The trial court then granted defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s case and denied plaintiff’s motion to void the arbitration award or extend the rejection deadline.  The trial court entered judgment on the arbitration award for defendant.

Plaintiff argued on appeal that Rule 25’s compressed rejection period violated her constitutional rights since it conflicted with the  30-day rejection deadline for Municipal Department arbitrations. (The Cook County Municipal Department hears personal injury cases and breach of contract suits where the damage claim is $30,000 or less.)   The plaintiff also claimed the Law Division MAP was unconstitutional since it clashed with the “panel of three” arbitrators rule prevailing in Municipal Department arbitrations.

Affirming the trial court, the Court first considered whether the Illinois Supreme Court had power to establish the Law Division MAP program with its seven-day rejection rule.

The Law Division MAP rejection period conflicts with Cook County’s Municipal Department arbitration scheme – which has a 30-day rejection rule.  (The Municipal arbitration rules, codified in Supreme Court Rules 86-95, were legislatively implemented via Code Sections 2-1001A and 1003A which, respectively, authorize the establishment of an arbitration program where a panel of three arbitrators hears cases involving less than $50,000 in damages. Rule 93(a) contains the 30-day rejection cut-off.)

The First District noted that while the Law Division MAP’s seven-day rejection period clashes with the Municipal Department’s 30-day period, Illinois courts through the decades consistently recognize the Illinois Supreme Court’s constitutional authority to make rules governing practice and procedure in the lower courts and that where a supreme court rule conflicts with a statute on a judicial procedure matter, the rule wins.

The court also notes the Illinois legislature echoed this inherent power for the Supreme Court to establish court rules in Code Section 1-104(a).  In the end, the Court found that In view of the Illinois Supreme Court’s expansive power in the area of pleadings, practice and procedure, the Law Division MAP’s abbreviated rejection period trumped any conflicting, longer rejection period found in other statutes or rules.  (¶¶ 17-18, 22-23).

The Court also rejected plaintiff’s equal protection argument – that the Law Division MAP program infringed the rights of Municipal court participants by shortening the rejection time span from 30 to seven days.  While allowing that Law Division and Municipal litigants in the arbitration setting share the same objective of taking part in a less-costly alternative to litigation, the Court found the two Programs “qualitatively different:” the Law Division MAP is geared to those seeking damages of between $50,000 and $75,000 while the Municipal plaintiff’s damages are capped at $30,000.

According to the Court, the different damage ceilings involved in Law Division and Municipal cases meant that plaintiffs in the two court systems aren’t similarly situated under the Equal Protection clause. (¶¶ 34-35).

Plaintiff’s final argument, that the Law Division MAP’s seven-day rejection period violated her due process rights also failed.  Due process requires an opportunity to be heard at a meaningful time and in a meaningful matter.

The plaintiff argued that the Law Division MAP’s seven-day rejection cut-off failed to give her a meaningful opportunity to challenge the award.   The Court thought otherwise.  It noted that statutes are presumed constitutional and someone challenging a statute’s constitutionality bears a heavy burden.  It then cited to multiple cases across a wide strata of facts which have upheld time limits of less than 30 days.

Afterwords:

McBreen offers a thorough, triangulated analysis of what happens when a Supreme Court Rule, a county’s local court rule and legislative enactments all speak to the same issue and appear to contradict each other.  The case solidifies the proposition that the Supreme Court’s primacy in the realm of lower court procedure and pleading extends to mandatory arbitration regimes, too.  While the case is silent on what constitutes a sufficient basis to extend the Law Division MAP’s seven-day rejection deadline, McBreen makes clear that a constitutional challenge will likely ring hollow.

 

Bank Escapes Liability Where It Accepts Two-Party Check With Only One Indorsement – IL ND

BBCN Bank v. Sterling Fire Restoration, Ltd., 2016 WL 691784 homes in on the required showing to win a motion for judgment on the pleadings in Federal court, the scope of a general release, and the UCC section governing joint payee or “two-party” checks.

The plaintiff, an assignee of a fire restorer’s claim who did some repair work on a commercial structure, sued two banks for paying out on a two-party check (the “Check”) where only one payee indorsed it. The Assignor was a payee on the Check but never indorsed it.

The banks moved for summary judgment on the ground that the assignor previously released its claims to the Check proceeds in an earlier lawsuit and filed a third-party suit against the assignor for indemnification.  The assignor moved for judgment on the pleadings on the banks’ third-party action.

Result: Bank defendants’ motions for summary judgment granted; Assignor’s judgment on the pleadings motion (on the banks’ third-party indemnification claims) denied.

Rules/Reasons:

FRCP 12(c) governs motions for judgment on the pleadings.  A party can move for judgment on the pleadings after the complaint and answer have been filed.  When deciding a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Court considers only the contents of the filed pleadings – including the complaint, answer, and complaint exhibits.  Like a summary judgment motion, a motion for judgment on the pleadings should be granted only if there are no genuine issues of material fact to be resolved at trial.

FRCP 56 governs summary judgment motions.  A party opposing a summary judgment must “pierce” (go beyond) the pleadings and point to evidence in the record (depositions, discovery responses, etc.) that creates a genuine factual dispute that must be decided after a trial on the merits.

UCC section 3-110 applies to checks with multiple payees.  It provides that if an instrument is jointly payable to 2 or more persons (not “alternatively”), it can only be negotiated, discharged or enforced by all of the payees.  810 ILCS 5/3-110(d).

Here, since both payees did not sign the Check, the banks plainly violated section 3-110 by accepting and paying it.  The Check was payable to two parties and only one signed it.

The banks still escaped liability though since the assigning restoration company previously released its claims to the Check proceeds.  In Illinois, a general release bars all claims a signing party (the releasor) has actual knowledge of or that he could have discovered upon reasonable inquiry.

Here, the assignor’s prior release of the bank defendants was binding on the plaintiff since an assignee cannot acquire greater rights to something than its assignor has.  And since the plaintiff’s claim against the banks was previously released by plaintiff’s assignor, plaintiff’s lawsuit against the banks were barred.

The Assignor’s motion for judgment on the pleadings on the banks’ third-party claims was denied due to factual disputes.  Since the court could not tell whether or not the assignor misrepresented to the plaintiff whether it had assigned its claim by looking only at the banks’ third-party complaint and the assignor’s answer, there were disputed facts that could only be decided after a trial.

Take-aways:

  • Motions for judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment motions will be denied if there is a genuine factual dispute for trial;
  • A summary judgment opponent (respondent) must produce evidence (not simply allegations in pleadings) to show that there are disputed facts that can only be decided on a full trial on the merits;
  • The right remedy for a UCC 3-110 violation is a conversion action under UCC section 3-420;
  • In sophisticated commercial transactions, a broadly-worded release will be enforced as written.

 

Turnover Order Against Debtor’s Wife’s Company Upheld – IL First District

While the amount of the turnover order – less than $6,000 – challenged in Xcel Supply, LLC v. Horowitz, 2018 IL App (1st) 162986 was but a fraction of the underlying judgment – over $600,000 – the case provides a useful discussion of the interplay between Section 2-1402 and Rule 277 – Illinois’s twin supplementary (post-judgment) proceedings authorities – and when a third-party citation respondent is entitled to an evidentiary hearing.

About a month after a trial court entered a money judgment against defendant, his wife – through her company – wrote six checks to the defendant/ judgment debtor over a three-month span totaling $5,220.

On the creditor’s turnover motion, the trial court ordered the debtor’s wife and third-party citation respondent (the Respondent) to turn over $5,220 to plaintiff’s counsel (defendant’s wife’s company). The Respondent appealed.

Affirming, the Court examined Code Section 2-1402 and Rule 277 to assess whether the turnover order was supported by competent proof.

Code Section 2-1402(a) permits a judgment creditor to prosecute supplementary proceedings to discover assets or income of the debtor and apply assets or income discovered toward the payment of the judgment.

The creditor can initiate post-judgment proceedings against the debtor or any other third party who may have information concerning income or assets belonging to the judgment debtor.

Code Section 2-1402 vests the Court with broad powers to compel any person to deliver assets to be applied towards satisfaction of the judgment in situations where the judgment debtor can recover those assets. An order compelling a third-party to deliver assets in full or partial satisfaction of the judgment is called a turnover order. A court can enter judgement against someone who violates a citation’s restraining provision in the amount of the property transferred or up to the judgment amount. 2-1402(f)(1); ⁋⁋ 40-41.

Rule 277 works in tandem with Section 2-1402 and specifies how supplementary proceedings are conducted. Among other things, the Rule allows “any interested party” to subpoena witnesses and adduce evidence in the same manner it could at a civil trial.

Where a judgment creditor and third-party citation respondent each claim superior rights to the same debtor assets, the trial court should conduct an evidentiary hearing. However, where only the judgment creditor is claiming rights in the debtor’s assets, the trial court can decide the post-judgment proceeding without an evidentiary hearing.

Here, because the Respondent was the debtor’s wife – the Court viewed her as an illusory citation respondent. That is, the debtor and Respondent acted as a united front. Because this was not the prototypical “tug-of-war” between a judgment creditor and third-party citation respondent, the trial court was able to rule on the respondent’s argument without an evidentiary hearing.

The Court also rejected the respondent’s argument that the turnover order lacked an evidentiary basis. The Court noted that the judgment debtor admitted in his affidavit to cashing all six checks from the Respondent’s company and that Respondent did nothing to stop him from cashing the checks.

Since the Respondent never challenged the debtor’s right to cash the checks, the Court viewed it as strong proof that the checks were the debtor’s property to spend as he pleased.

Finally, the Court rejected Respondent’s argument that the money sent to the debtor wasn’t really his money as the funds were earmarked for their children’s expenses. According to the court, since both the debtor and Respondent had equal parental obligations to pay their children’s expenses, whether or not the money was for child expenses didn’t negate the trial court’s finding that the checks were defendant’s property and Respondent violated the citation by transferring the checks to the defendant after the date of the money judgment.

Afterwords: This case shows that citation restraining provisions which bar a third-party citation respondent from transferring money or property belonging to or to become due a judgment debtor have teeth.

While an evidentiary hearing is normally required where there are competing claimants to the same pool of assets, this rule is relaxed where the citation respondent is aligned (here, through marriage) with the debtor. In such a case, the court will look beyond the legal nomenclature and assess the reality of the parties’ relationship. Where the third-party citation respondent doesn’t have a meaningful claim to transferred debtor assets, the Court can decide a turnover motion without hearing live witness testimony.