Tag: business torts

Food Maker’s Consumer Fraud Claim For Deficient Buttermilk Formula Tossed (IL ND Case Note)

The food company plaintiff in Kraft Foods v. SunOpta Ingredients, Inc., 2016 WL 5341809 sued a supplier of powdered buttermilk for consumer fraud when it learned that for over two decades the defendant had been selling plaintiff a buttermilk compound consisting of buttermilk powder mixed with other ingredients instead of “pure” buttermilk.

Granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the Northern District examines the “consumer nexus” requirement for consumer fraud liability and what conduct by a business entity can still implicate consumer concerns and be actionable under the Consumer Fraud Act, 815 ILCS 505/2 (the “CFA”).

The plaintiff believed it was receiving buttermilk product that wasn’t cut with other ingredients; it relied heavily on a 1996 product specification sheet prepared by defendant’s predecessor that claimed to use only pristine ingredients.

Upon learning that defendant’s buttermilk was not “pure” but was instead a hybrid product composed of buttermilk powder, whey powder, and dried milk, Plaintiff sued.

Dismissing the CFA claim, the Court rejected plaintiff’s argument that the ersatz buttermilk implicated consumer concerns since consumers were the end-users of the product and because consumer health and safety was possibly compromised.

The CFA offers broader protection than common law fraud.  Unlike its common law counterpart, the CFA plaintiff does not have to prove it actually relied on an untrue statement.  Instead, the CFA plaintiff must allege (1) a deceptive or unfair act or practice by defendant, (2) defendant’s intent that plaintiff rely on the deception or unfair practice, (3) the unfair or deceptive practice occurred during a course of conduct involving trade or commerce.

As its name suggests, the CFA applies specifically to consumers which it defines as “any person who purchases or contracts for the purchase of merchandise not for resale in the ordinary course of his trade or business but for his use or that of a member of his household.” 815 ILCS 505/1.  Where a CFA plaintiff is a business entity – like in this case – the court applies the “consumer nexus” test.  Under this test, if the defendant’s conduct is addressed to the market generally or otherwise implicates consumer protection concerns, the corporate plaintiff can have standing to sue under the CFA.

A classic example of conduct aimed at a business that still implicates consumer protection concerns is a defendant disparaging a business plaintiff or misleading consumers about that plaintiff.  But the mere fact that consumers are end product users normally isn’t enough to satisfy the consumer nexus test.  Here, defendants’ actions were twice removed from the consumer: Defendant supplied plaintiff with product who, in turn, incorporated defendant’s buttermilk product into its food offerings.

The Court also rejected plaintiff’s argument that defendant’s product imperiled “public health, safety or welfare issues.”  Since the plaintiff failed to plead any facts to show that defendant’s conduct affected, much less harmed, consumers, there was no consumer nexus (or connection) and plaintiff’s CFA claim failed.

Take-aways:

Even under relaxed Federal notice pleading standards, a consumer fraud plaintiff must still provide factual specifics in its Complaint.  The case illustrates that the consumer nexus test has some teeth.  Where the plaintiff is a sophisticated commercial entity and isn’t using a product as a consumer would, it will be tough for the plaintiff to show consumer protection concerns are involved.

 

Broken Promises In Medical Services Agreement Don’t Equal Fraud – IL Court

An Illinois appeals court recently examined the promissory fraud rule in a medical services contract dispute.

The key principle distilled from the court’s unpublished analysis in Advocate Health and Hospitals Corp. v. Cardwell, 2016 IL App (4th) 150312-U is that where fraud claims are based on false promises of future conduct, the claims will fail.

The plaintiff hospital there sued a former staff doctor for breaching a multi-year written services contract. When the doctor prematurely resigned to join a hospital in another state, the plaintiff sued him to recover about $250,000 advanced to the doctor at the contract’s outset.

The doctor counterclaimed, alleging the hospital fraudulently induced him to sign the contract. He claimed the hospital broke promises to elevate him to a Director position and allow him to develop a new perinatology practice group at the hospital.  Since the promises were false, the doctor claimed, the underlying services contract was void.

Siding with the hospital (it granted the hospital’s summary judgment motion), the Court discussed when a defendant’s fraudulent inducement can nullify a written contract.

In Illinois, to establish fraud in the inducement, a plaintiff must show (1) a false statement of material fact, (2) defendant’s knowledge the statement was false, (3) defendant’s intent to induce the plaintiff’s reliance on the statement, (4) plaintiff’s reasonable reliance on the truth of the statement, and (5) damages resulting from reliance on the statement.

A critical qualification is that the fraud must be based on a misstatement of existing fact; not a future one.  Fraud in the inducement goes beyond a simple breaking of a promise or a prediction that doesn’t come to pass.

Here, the Court found that the hospital’s pre-contract statements all involved future events. The promise of a Directorship for the doctor was merely aspirational. It wasn’t a false statement of present fact.   The Court also determined that the hospital’s representations to the doctor about the development of a perinatology program spoke to a hoped-for future event.

Since the entirety of the doctor’s fraud counterclaim rested on the hospital’s promises of future conduct/events, the Court entered summary judgment against the doctor on his fraud in the inducement counter-claim.

Afterwords:

This is another case that sharply illustrates how difficult it is to prove fraud in the inducement; especially where the alleged misstatements refer to contingent events that may or may not happen.  While a broken promise may be a breach of contract, it isn’t fraud.

For a misstatement to be actionable fraud, it has to involve an actual, present state of affairs. Anything prospective/future in nature will likely be swallowed up by the promissory fraud rule.

Hotel Titan Escapes Multi-Million Dollar Fla. Judgment Where No Joint Venture in Breach of Contract Case

In today’s featured case, the plaintiff construction firm contracted with a vacation resort operator in the Bahamas partly owned by a Marriott hotel subsidiary. When the resort  breached the contract, the plaintiff sued and won a $7.5M default judgment in a Bahamas court. When that judgment proved uncollectable, the plaintiff sued to enforce the judgment in Florida state court against Marriott – arguing it was responsible for the judgment since it was part of a joint venture that owned the resort company.  The jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff and against Marriott who then appealed.

Reversing the judgment, the Florida appeals court first noted that under Florida law, a joint venture is an association of persons or legal entities to carry out a single enterprise for profit.

In addition to proving the single enterprise for profit, the joint venture plaintiff must demonstrate (i) a community of interest in the performance of the common purpose, (ii) joint control or right to control the venture; (iii) a joint proprietary interest in the subject matter of the venture; (4) the right to share in the profits; and (5) a duty to share in any losses that may be sustained.

All elements must be established. If only one is absent, there’s no joint venture – even if the parties intended to form a joint venture from the outset.

The formation of a corporation almost always signals there is no joint venture. This is because joint ventures generally follow partnership law which follows a different set of rules than do corporations. So, by definition, corporate shareholders cannot be joint venturers by definition.

Otherwise, a plaintiff could “have it both ways” and claim that a given business entity was both a corporation and a joint venture. This would defeat the liability-limiting function of the corporate form.

A hallmark of joint control in a joint venture context is mutual agency: the ability of one joint venturer to bind another concerning the venture’s subject matter.  The reverse is also true: where one party cannot bind the other, there is no joint venture.

Here, none of the alleged joint venturers had legal authority to bind the others within the scope of the joint venture. The plaintiff failed to offer any evidence of joint control over either the subject of the venture or the other venturers’ conduct.

There was also no proof that one joint venture participant could bind the others. Since Marriott was only a minority shareholder in the resort enterprise, the court found it didn’t exercise enough control over the defaulted resort to subject it (Marriott) to liability for the resort’s breach of contract.

The court also ruled in Marriott’s favor on the plaintiff’s fraudulent inducement claim premised on Marriott’s failure to disclose the resort’s precarious economic status in order to  entice the plaintiff to contract with the resort.

Under Florida law, a fraud in the inducement claim predicated on a failure to disclose material information requires a plaintiff to prove a defendant had a duty to disclose information. A duty to disclose can be found (1) where there is a fiduciary duty among parties; or (2) where a party partially discloses certain facts such that he should have to divulge the rest of the related facts known to it.

Here, neither situation applied. Marriott owed no fiduciary duty to the plaintiff and didn’t transmit incomplete information to the plaintiff that could saddle the hotel chain with a duty to disclose.

Take-aways:

A big economic victory for Marriott. Clearly the plaintiff was trying to fasten liability to a deep-pocketed defendant several layers removed from the breaching party. The case shows how strictly some courts will scrutinize a joint venture claim. If there is no joint control or mutual agency, there is no joint venture. Period.

The case also solidifies business tort axiom that a fraudulent inducement by silence claim will only prevail if there is a duty to disclose – which almost always requires the finding of a fiduciary relationship. In situations like here, where there is a high-dollar contract between sophisticated commercial entities, it will usually be impossible to prove a fiduciary relationship.

Source: Marriott International, Inc. v. American Bridge Bahamas, Ltd., 2015 WL 8936529