Tag: negligent misrepresentation

Doctor’s Oral Promise to Retire in Future Not Enough To Sustain Healthcare Plaintiff’s Fraud Claims

In Heartland Women’s Healthcare, Ltd. v. Simonton-Smith, 2021 IL App (5th) 200135-U, the appeals court affirmed summary judgment for an obstetrician sued for fraud based on her alleged verbal promise to retire from her practice at the end of a three-year employment term.

The plaintiff claimed the defendant tricked it into buying her practice by promising to retire. The written agreement resulting from the parties’ negotiations contained neither a non-compete term nor a recital that defendant intended to retire at the agreement’s conclusion.

The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendant on plaintiff’s fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims.  Plaintiff appealed.

Affirming, the Fifth District found that the plaintiff failed to produce evidence to support its misrepresentation claims and specifically, to show defendant hatched a “scheme to defraud” the plaintiff.

In Illinois, to state a colorable fraudulent misrepresentation claim, a plaintiff must allege: (1) a false statement of material facts, (2) known or believed to be false by the person making it, (3) an intent to induce a plaintiff to act, (4) action by the plaintiff in justifiable reliance on the truth of the statement, and (5) damage to the plaintiff resulting from the reliance.

A negligent misrepresentation plaintiff must also establish these elements but instead of showing a knowingly false statement, must prove the defendant (i) was careless or negligent in ascertaining the truth of the statement and (ii) owed a duty to the plaintiff to impart accurate information.

In both a fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation claim, the statement must be of an existing or past fact and not merely a promise to do something in the future.  The alleged fraud must also be complete at the time of the challenged statement as opposed to an intention to commit a future fraud.

The ‘Scheme to Defraud’ Exception

Where the false representation of future conduct is the scheme or device employed to accomplish the fraud, a court can restore the parties to the positions they occupied before the fraud was committed.  And while courts make clear that something beyond a lone broken promise is usually required to trigger the scheme exception, that “plus-factor” is still elusive.

Some courts require a plaintiff to allege a sustained pattern of repeated false representations [see HPI Health Care Services, Inc. v. Mt. Vernon Hospital, Inc., 131 Ill.2d 145 (1989)] while others [Roda v. Berko (401 Ill.335 (1948), Vance Pearson, Inc. v. Alexander, 86 Ill.App.3d 1105 (1980)] have held that a single promise can trigger the scheme exception.

In cases that have recognized the exception in the single broken promise setting, the plaintiff must generally produce evidence of a  defendant’s contemporaneous intention not to follow through on the promise.   The cases also make clear that whether a plaintiff is proceeding on a course of conduct scheme theory or one that involves only one promise, it must show the defendant’s fraudulent intent existed at or before the time of the promise. [25]

Here, the plaintiff could not prove the defendant promised to retire while, at the same time, never intending to fulfill that promise at the outset.  For support, the Court quoted both plaintiff’s agent’s and defendant’s deposition testimony.  Both testified that while the defendant’s future retirement was discussed prior to inking the three-year pact, it was never reduced to writing.  The plaintiff also could not pinpoint a definite promise by the defendant to retire when the employment contract lapsed.

As further proof that the defendant never unequivocally promised to retire, the plaintiff’s agent testified he even asked the defendant not to retire and that defendant stay beyondthe employment contract’s end date.  In the end, Plaintiff’s evidence did not go far enough to establish either an oral promise to retire at the agreement’s conclusion or the defendant’s intention not to fulfill that promise.

Afterwords:

In finding for the doctor defendant, the Heartland Women’s Healthcare Court was careful to respect the boundary between contract and tort law damages – a delineation that, in theory at least, prevents every broken promise from undergirding a fraud claim.

And while the content and outer reaches of the scheme to defraud exception [to the rule that a false promise is not actionable fraud] is still murky, it seems that something beyond a one-off broken promise is generally required.  A plaintiff invoking the scheme exception has a better chance of surviving a pleadings motion or summary judgment where it can show a defendant’s pattern of repeated broken promises.

Here, the plaintiff alleged only a single misstatement – defendant’s supposed oral promise to retire at the conclusion of the employment contract.  Without evidence of defendant’s contemporaneous intent not to uphold her promise, there wasn’t enough evidence of a scheme to defraud to survive summary judgment.

In hindsight, the Plaintiff should have negotiated and codified both a non-compete provision and defendant’s imminent retirement as material terms of the contract.

 

 

Discovery Screw-Up Not Enough To Sustain Negligence Claim – 7th Cir.

Nixing an $8M Federal jury verdict, the Seventh Circuit recently held, among other things, that a discovery rule violation cannot undergird a negligent misrepresentation claim.

The plaintiffs in Turubchuk v. Southern Illinois Asphalt Company, 958 F.3d 541 (7thCir. 2020), twice sued a joint venture consisting of two paving contractors for personal injuries sustained in a 2005 traffic accident.  The first lawsuit, sounding in negligence, settled for $1MM, the amount plaintiff believed was the maximum available insurance coverage based on the defendant’s for the JV defendant’s attorneys’ pretrial discovery disclosures.

When the plaintiffs learned that the $1MM coverage cap only applied to the joint venture entity and not to the venture’s component companies, they sued again.  This second suit alleged fraud and negligent misrepresentation – that the defendant’s counsel misrepresented its insurance coverage limits.  Plaintiffs eventually went to trial only on their negligent misrepresentation claim.

This second suit culminated in the jury’s $8MM-plus verdict.  Defendant appealed citing a slew of trial court errors.

Reversing, the Court first considered the effect of Defendant’s erroneous Rule 26 disclosure.   Under Illinois law, an actionable negligent misrepresentation claim requires proof of a legal duty on the person making the challenged statement to convey accurate information.

The Plaintiffs alleged the Defendant’s duty was found in the disclosure requirements of Rule 26 – the Federal rule governing pre-trial witness and document disclosures.  The Court found no case authority that grounded a negligence duty in a federal procedural rule.  Instead, the Court noted, cases from the 9thCircuit and 7thCircuit held just the opposite and further opined that discovery rules are “self-policing:” a discovery violation subjects the violator to sanctions under Rules 26 and 37.

The 7thCircuit also ruled that the District Court erred in finding as a matter of law (on pretrial summary judgment and in-limine orders) that defendant breached its duty to plaintiffs and that plaintiffs justifiably relied on the representations.

Whether a defendant breaches a legal duty and whether a plaintiff reasonably relies on a representation are natural fact questions. Here, on the existence of a legal duty prong, there were a plethora of unanswered questions – i.e. what information did the attorney have at his disposal when plaintiff made a $1MM policy limits (or so he thought) demand before discovery even started? – that raised possible disputed fact questions that are normally jury questions.  The District Court’s pre-trial ruling on these issues hamstrung the defendant’s efforts to challenge whether defendant’s counsel acted negligently. [15]

Another trial court error stemmed from the non-reliance clause contained in the written release that settled the Plaintiffs’ first negligence lawsuit.  A non-reliance clause will normally foreclose a future fraud suit since reliance is one of the salient fraud elements.

That said, Illinois case law is in flux as to whether a non-reliance clause precludes a later fraud action.

In addition, whether reliance is justified in a given fact setting is quintessentially a triable fact question involving what a statement recipient knew or could have learned through the exercise of ordinary prudence.  This case authority uncertainty coupled with the multiple fact issues endemic to the justifiable reliance inquiry made it improper for the District judge to make a per se, pre-trial finding that plaintiffs justifiably relied on the defendant’s counsel’s insurance coverage disclosure.

The evidence was also conflicting on whether the defendant entities even had a joint venture.  Whether or not defendants were a joint venture was integral to the amount of insurance available to settle Plaintiffs’ claims and so it impacted the causation and damages elements of plaintiffs’ negligent misrepresentation case.

A hallmark of a joint venture is joint ownership or control of a business enterprise. See http://paulporvaznik.com/joint-ventures-in-illinois-features-and-effects/6699. This created disputed fact questions that should have been decided by the jury.

Next, the Court overturned the jury’s finding that Plaintiffs’ established that Defendant’s attorney intended to induce Plaintiffs’ reliance on the amount of available insurance coverage. [The intent to induce reliance element was the only negligent misrepresentation element that went to the jury.]

Federal Rule of Evidence 602 requires a witness to testify based on personal knowledge.

However, there was no such testimony adduced at trial. Instead, the only trial evidence on this negligent misrepresentation element was  Plaintiffs’ counsel’s self-serving speculative testimony that defendant’s counsel misrepresented the available insurance coverage to induce Plaintiffs’ to accept a relatively paltry $1MM to settle the case. [21, n. 11]. Moreover, the District Court improperly excluded evidence of Plaintiff’s counsel’s credibility since he had previously surrendered his law license in lieu of disbarment for alleged acts of dishonesty, fraud or misrepresentation. See FRE 608.

In the end, the Court found there was insufficient evidence at trial for the jury to find that Defendant’s counsel intended to induce Plaintiffs’ reliance on the Rule 26 discovery disclosures of insurance coverage.

Afterwords:

A negligent misrepresentation claim cannot be premised on violation of a Federal discovery rule;

The court invades province of the jury when it rules on elements that are inherently fact-driven;

Evidence Rules 602 and 608 respectively limit a trial witness to testifying to matters of personal knowledge and allow an opponent to probe that witness’s credibility by delving into his/her reputation for truthfulness.

 

 

 

High-Tech Sports Equipment Plaintiff Alleges Viable Fraud Claim Against Electronic Sensor Supplier (Newspin v. Arrow – Part II)

In Newspin Sports, LLC v. Arrow Electronics, Inc., 2018 WL 6295272, the Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff’s negligent misrepresentation claims but upheld its fraud claims.

Under New York law (the contract had a NY choice-of-law provision), a plaintiff alleging negligent misrepresentation must establish (1) a special, privity-like relationship that imposes a duty on the defendant to impart accurate information to the plaintiff, (2) information that was factually inaccurate, and (3) plaintiff’s reasonable reliance on the information.

New York’s economic loss rule softens the negligent misrepresentation theory, however. This rule prevents a plaintiff from recovering economic losses under a tort theory. Since the plaintiff’s alleged negligence damages – money it lost from the flawed electronic components – mirrored its breach of contract damages, the negligent misrepresentation claim was barred by the economic loss rule. [*10]

Plaintiff’s fraud claims fared better.  In New York, a fraud claim will not lie for a simple breach of contract.  That is, where the only “fraud” alleged is a defendant’s broken promise or lack of sincerity in making a promise, the fraud claim merely duplicates the breach of contract one.

To allege a fraud claim separate from a breach of contract, a plaintiff must establish (1) a legal duty separate from the duty to perform under a contract, or (2) demonstrate a misrepresentation collateral or extraneous to the contract, or (3) special damages caused by the misrepresentation that are not recoverable as contract damages. [*11] [32]-[33].

Applying these principles, the Court noted that the plaintiff alleged the defendant made present-tense factual representations concerning its experience, skill set and that its components met plaintiff’s specifications.  Taken together, these statements – if true – sufficiently pled a legal duty separate from the parties’ contractual relationship to state a colorable fraud claim.

The Court also rejected the defendant’s argument that the plaintiff’s fraud claims were subject to the UCC’s four-year limitations period governing sales of goods contracts.  Since the plaintiff’s fraud count differed from its breach of contract claim, Illinois’s five-year statute of limitations for common law fraud governed.  See 735 ILCS 5/13-205,  As a result, plaintiff’s 2017 filing date occurred within the five-year time limit and the fraud claim was timely. [*12] [35].

Afterwords:

The economic loss rule will bar a negligent misrepresentation claim where a plaintiff’s pleaded damages simply restate its breach of contract damages;

A fraud claim can survive a pleadings motion to dismiss so long as the predicate allegations go beyond the subject matter of the contract governing the parties’ relationship.