Now we can add PSI Resources, LLC v. MB Financial Bank (2016 IL App (1st) 152204) to the case canon of decisions that harmonize conflicting statutes of limitations and show how hard it is for a corporate account holder to successfully sue its bank.
The plaintiff, an assignee of three related companies**, sued the companies’ bank for misapplying nearly $400K in client payments over a several-year period. The bank moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff’s suit was time-barred by the three-year limitations period that governs actions based on negotiable instruments.*** The court dismissed the complaint and the plaintiff appealed.
Held: Affirmed
Reasons:
The key question was whether the Uniform Commercial Code’s three-year limitations period for negotiable instrument claims or the general ten-year period for breach of written contract actions applied to the plaintiff’s negligence suit against the bank. The issue was outcome-determinative since the plaintiff didn’t file suit until more than three years passed from the most recent misapplied check.
Illinois applies a ten-year limitations period for actions based on breach of written contract. 735 ILCS 5/13-206. By contrast, an action based on a negotiable instrument is subject to the shorter three-year period. 810 ILCS 5/4-111.
If the subject of a lawsuit is a negotiable instrument, the UCC’s three-year time period applies since UCC Article 4 actions based on conversion and Article 3 suits for improper payment both involve negotiable instruments. 810 ILCS 5/3-118(g)(conversion); 810 ILCS 5/4-111 (improper payment).
Rejecting plaintiff’s argument that this was a garden-variety breach of contract action to which the ten-year period attached, the court held that since plaintiff’s claims were essentially based on banking transactions, the three-year limitations period for negotiable instruments governed. (¶¶ 36-38)
Where two statutes of limitations arguably apply to the same cause of action, the statute that more specifically relates to the claim applies over the more general statute. While the ten-year statute for breach of written contracts is a general, “catch-all” limitations period, section 4-111’s three-year rule more specifically relates to a bank’s duties and obligations to its customers.
And since the three-year rule was more specific as it pertained to the plaintiff’s improper deposit and payment claims, the shorter limitations period controlled and plaintiff’s suit was untimely.
The court also sided with the bank on policy grounds. It stressed that the UCC aims to foster fluidity and efficiency in commercial transactions. If the ten-year period applied to every breach of contract action against a bank (as plaintiff argued), the UCC’s goal of promoting commercial finality and certainty would be frustrated and possibly bog down financial deals.
The other plaintiff’s argument rejected by the court was that the discovery rule saved the plaintiff’s lawsuit. The discovery rule protects plaintiffs who don’t know they are injured. It suspends (tolls) the limitations period until a plaintiff knows or should know he’s been hurt. The discovery rule standard is not subjective certainty (“I now realize I have been harmed,” e.g.). Instead, the rule is triggered where “the injured person becomes possessed of sufficient information concerning his injury and its cause to put a reasonable person on inquiry to determine whether actionable conduct is involved.” (¶ 47)
Here, the evidence was clear that plaintiff’s assigning companies received deposit statements on a monthly basis for a several-year period. And the monthly statements contained enough information to put the companies on notice that the bank may have misapplied deposits. According to the court, these red flags should have motivated the plaintiff to dig deeper into the statements’ discrepancies.
Take-aways:
This case suggests that an abbreviated three-year limitations period applies to claims based on banking transactions; even if a written contract – like an account agreement – is the foundation for a plaintiff’s action against a bank. A plaintiff with a possible breach of contract suit against his bank should take great care to sue within the three-year period when negotiable instruments are involved.
Another case lesson is that the discovery rule has limits. If facts exist to put a reasonable person on notice that he may have suffered financial harm, he will be held to a shortened limitations period; regardless of whether he has actual knowledge of harm.
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** The court took judicial notice of the Illinois Secretary of State’s corporate registration database which established that the three assigned companies shared the same registered agent and business address.
*** 810 ILCS 5/3-104 (“negotiable instrument” means an unconditional promise or order to pay a fixed amount of money, with or without interest or other charges described in the promise or order, if it: (1) is payable to bearer or to order at the time it is issued or first comes into possession of a holder (2) is payable on demand or at a definite time; and (3) does not state any other undertaking or instruction by the person promising or ordering payment to do any act in addition to the payment of money, but the promise or order may contain (i) an undertaking or power to give, maintain, or protect collateral to secure payment, (ii) an authorization or power to the holder to confess judgment or realize on or dispose of collateral, or (iii) a waiver of the benefit of any law intended for the advantage or protection of an obligor.)