Tag: conversion

Binding LLC to Operating Agreement A Substantive Change in Illinois Law; No Retroactive Effect – IL Court

The summer of 2017 ushered in a slew of changes, to Illinois’ limited liability company statute, 805 ILCS 180/15-1 et seq. (the “Act”).  Some of the key Act amendments included clarifying LLC member rights to access company records, explaining if and when a member or manager’s fiduciary duties can be eliminated or reduced, tweaking the Act’s judgment creditor remedies section, and changing the Act’s conversion (e.g. partnership to LLC or vice versa) and domestication rules.

Q Restaurant Group Holdings, LLC v. Lapidus, 2017 IL App (2d) 170804-U, examines another statutory change – one that binds an LLC to an operating agreement (OA) even where the LLC doesn’t sign it. See 805 ILCS 180/15-5.

The OA is the LLC’s governing document that sets forth each member’s (or manager’s) respective rights and obligations concerning contribution, distribution, voting rights and the like. The OA’s signing parties are typically the LLC members/managers – not the LLC itself.  Legally, this is significant because under privity of contract principles – only a party to a written agreement can sue to enforce it.

2017’s LLC Act changes make it clear that the LLC entity has standing to sue and be sued under the OA regardless of whether or not the LLC signed it.

The plaintiff in Lapidus sued the defendant for various business torts including conversion and tortious interference with contract. The defendant moved to dismiss the suit based on mandatory arbitration language in the OA.  Denying defendant’s Section 2-619 motion, the Court held that since the amended Section 15-5 of the Act worked a substantive change to the former LLC Act section, it didn’t apply retroactively. (The OA in Lapidus preceded the 2017 amendments.)

Rules/reasoning:

Affirming the trial court, the First District examined the dichotomy between procedural and substantive changes to legislation.  Where a statutory amendment is enacted after a lawsuit is filed, the Court looks to whether the legislature specified the reach (i.e. does it apply retroactively?) of the amendment.  Where new legislation is silent on its scope, the Court determines whether a given amendment is procedural or substantive.  If procedural, the amendment has retroactive effect.  If the change is substantive, however, it will only apply prospectively.

A procedural change is one that “prescribes the method of enforcing rights or obtaining redress” such as pleadings, evidence and practice.  A substantive change, by contrast, is one that establishes, creates or defines legal rights.  (¶¶ 15-16; citing to Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 280 (1994); 5 ILCS 70/4 (Illinois’s Statute on Statutes))

In finding that amended Section 15-5 was a substantive change to Illinois’ LLC Act (and therefore couldn’t be applied retroactively) the court noted the amended statute “established a contractual right” by binding the LLC to an OA it never signed.

Since the plaintiff LLC in Lapidus never signed the OA, the Court couldn’t require the plaintiff to follow the OA’s arbitration clause without substantially altering the LLC’s contract rights.  As a result, the Court held that amended Section 15-5 did not apply to the pre-amendment OA and the plaintiff didn’t have to adhere to the arbitration clause.t have to adhere to the OA’s arbitration provisions. (¶¶ 18-19).

Afterwords:

I. To decide if a statutory amendment applies retroactively (as opposed to only being forward-looking), the court considers whether the change is procedural or substantive.

II. While the distinction between procedural and substantive isn’t always clear, Lapidus stands for proposition a change in the law that alters a parties basic contract rights (such as by making a non-party a party to an operating agreement) is substantive and will only apply in the future.

III.  And though the case is unpublished, Lapidus still makes for interesting reading in light of Illinois’ manifold LLC Act changes.  With so many recent statutory changes (see here_for example), this case likely augurs an uptick in cases interpreting the 2017 LLC Act amendments.

Florida Series II: RE Broker Can Assert Ownership Interest in Retained Deposits in Priority Dispute with Condo Developer’s Lenders

Plaza Tower v. 300 South Duval Associates, LLC considers whether a real estate broker or a lender has “first dibs” on earnest money deposits held by a property developer.  After nearly 80% of planned condominium units failed to close (no doubt a casualty of the 2008 crash), the developer was left holding $2.4M of nonrefundable earnest money deposits.  The exclusive listing agreement (“Listing Agreement”) between the developer and the broker plaintiff provided the broker was entitled to 1/3 of retained deposits in the event the units failed to close.

After the developer transferred the deposits to the lender, the broker sued the lender (but not the developer for some reason) asserting claims for conversion and unjust enrichment.

The trial court granted the lenders’ summary judgment motion.  It found that the lenders had a prior security interest in the retained deposits and the broker was at most, a general unsecured creditor of the developer.  The broker appealed.

The issue on appeal was whether the broker could assert an ownership interest in the retained deposits such that it could state a conversion claim against the lenders.

The Court’s key holding was that the developer’s retained deposits comprised an identifiable fund that could underlie a conversion claim.  Two contract sections combined to inform the Court’s ruling.

One contract section provided that the broker’s commission would be “equal to one-third of the amount of the retained deposits.”  The Court viewed this as too non-specific since it didn’t earmark a particular fund.

But another contract section did identify a particular fund; it stated that commission advances to the broker would be offset against commissions paid from the retained deposits.  As a result, the retained deposits were particular enough to sustain a conversion action.  Summary judgment for the developer reversed.

Afterwords: Where a contract provides that a nonbreaching party has rights in a specific, identifiable fund, that party can assert ownership rights to the fund.  Absent a particular fund and resulting ownership rights in them, a plaintiff’s conversion claim for theft or dissipation of the fund will fail.

 

Federal Court Gives Illinois Primer on Personal Property Torts

The plaintiff in Peco Pallet, Inc. v. Northwest Pallet Supply Co., 2016 WL 5405107 sued a recycling company under various theories after their once harmonious business relationship imploded.

The plaintiff, a wooden pallet manufacturer, instituted a program where it offered to pay pallet recyclers like defendant a specific amount per returned pallet.  When the plaintiff announced it was going to cut the per-pallet payment rate, the defendant recycler balked and refused to return several thousand of plaintiff’s pallets.  The plaintiff sued and the defendant filed counterclaims.

In partially dismissing and sustaining the parties’ various claims, the Court offers a useful refresher on both some common and uncommon legal theories that apply to personal property.

Replevin and Detinue

The Illinois replevin statute, 735 ILCS 5/19-101, allows a plaintiff to try to recover goods wrongfully detained by a defendant.  The statute employs a two-step process involving an initial hearing and a subsequent trial.

Once a replevin suit is filed, the court holds a hearing to determine whether to issue a replevin order.  If at the hearing the plaintiff shows he most likely has a superior right to possession of the disputed property and is likely to prevail at trial, the court enters an order of replevin which requires the defendant release the plaintiff’s property pending the trial.  If the plaintiff later wins at trial, he can recover money damages attributable to the defendant’s wrongful detention of the property.

Closely related to replevin, a detinue claim also seeks the recovery of personal property and damages for its wrongful detention.  Unlike replevin however, there is no preliminary hearing in a detinue case pending final judgment.  Possession remains with the defendant until final judgment.

Since the purpose of the replevin and detinue remedies is the return of personal property, where a defendant returns plaintiff its property, the claims are moot.  Here, since the defendant returned the 17,000 pallets that were subjects of the replevin suit, the Court found that the replevin and detinue claims pertaining to the returned pallets were moot.

The court did allow, however, plaintiff to go forward on its detinue claim for damages related to defendant’s failure to account for some 30,000 pallets.

Conversion

A conversion plaintiff must prove (1) a right to property at issue, (2) an absolute and unconditional right to immediate possession of the property, (3) a demand for possession, and (4) that defendant wrongfully and without authorization, assumed control, dominion or ownership over the property.

The essence of conversion is wrongful deprivation, not wrongful acquisition.  This means that even where a defendant initially possesses property lawfully, if that possession later becomes unauthorized, the plaintiff will have a conversion claim.

Here, the plaintiff alleged that it owned the pallets, that it demanded their return and defendant’s refusal to return them.  These allegations were sufficient to plead a cause of action for conversion.

 

Negligence

The Court also sustained the plaintiff’s negligence claim against the motion to dismiss.  In Illinois, a negligence action arising from a bailment requires allegations of (1) an express or implied agreement to create a bailment, (2) delivery of property to the bailee in good condition, (3) bailee’s acceptance of the property, and (4) bailee’s failure to return the property or its returning the property in damaged condition.

The plaintiff sufficiently alleged an implied bailment – that defendant accepted the pallets and failed to return some of the pallets while returning others in a compromised state.  These allegations were enough for the negligence count to survive.

Promissory Estoppel

The Court found that the defendant sufficiently pled an alternative promissory estoppel counterclaim.  Promissory estoppel applies where defendant makes a promise that the plaintiff relies on to its detriment.  The pleading elements of promissory estoppel are (1) an unambiguous promise, (2) plaintiff’s reliance on the promise, (3) plaintiff’s reliance was expected and foreseeable by defendant, (4) plaintiff relied on the promise to its detriment.

A promissory estoppel claim can’t co-exist with a breach of express contract claim: it only applies where there is no contractual consideration.  Here, the defendant/counter-plaintiff alleged there was no express contract.  Instead, it claimed that plaintiff’s promise to pay anyone who returned the pallets motivated defendant to return thousands of them.  The court viewed these allegations as factual enough for a colorable promissory estoppel claim.

Tortious Interference with Contract and Business Expectancy

The court dismissed the defendant’s tortious interference counterclaims.  Each tort requires a plaintiff to point to defendant’s conduct directed at a third party that results in a breach of a contract.  Here, the defendant’s counterclaim focused on plaintiff’s own actions in unilaterally raising prices and altering terms of its earlier pallet return program.  Since defendant didn’t allege any conduct by the plaintiff aimed at a third party (someone other than counter-claimant, e.g.), the tortious interference claims failed.

Take-aways:

1/ Conversion action can be based on defendant’s possession that was initially lawful but that later becomes wrongful;

2/ A Promissory estoppel claim can provide a viable fall-back remedy when there is no express contract;

3/ Tortious interference claim must allege defendant’s conduct directed toward a third party (someone other than plaintiff);

4/Where personal property is wrongfully detained and ultimately returned, the property owner can still have valid detinue claim for damages.