Tag: Porvaznik

Constructive Fraud in IL Mechanics’ Lien Suits: A Case Study

ACHere’s one from the vault.  While dated, the case is still relevant for its cogent discussion of important and recurring mechanics’ lien litigation issues.  In Springfield Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. v. 3947-55 King Drive at Oakwood, LLC, 387 Ill App 3d 906 (1st Dist. 2009), the First District examined the concept of constructive fraud and discussed when a subcontractor can bring alternative unjust enrichment and quantum meruit claims in a lien suit.

The plaintiff was a subcontractor who installed HVAC materials on a construction project consisting of two adjoining properties  for a total contract sum of about $400,000.  When the general contractor fired it, the plaintiff liened both parcels each for $300,000 – the total amount plaintiff was then due for its HVAC work.  The result was a “blanket lien” on the properties for a total of about $600K – double the proper amount.

The plaintiff sued to foreclose its liens and filed companion (and alternative) claims for quantum meruit and unjust enrichment against the general contractor and owner defendants.  The trial court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims.  The court held that the lien claim was constructively fraudulent since it was inflated by almost two times the actual lien amount and because the lien wasn’t apportioned among the two property parcels.  The Court dismissed the plaintiff’s quantum meruit and unjust enrichment claims because it held that a subcontractor’s only remedy against an owner is a mechanics lien foreclosure action.

Held: Affirmed in part; reversed in part

 Constructive Fraud

The First District found there was no evidence of constructive fraud by the subcontractor; noting that Section 7 of the Lien Act aims to protect honest lien claimants who make a mistake rather than claimants who intentionally make a false statement or who knowingly inflates their lien.  That’s why someone must show an intent to defraud in order to nullify a lien.

While acknowledging that the plaintiff subcontractor’s lien totaled about $600K – nearly double of the amount it was actually owed – the Court looked beyond the liens’ numerical overcharge and found no additional evidence of fraudulent intent. 

This holding amplifies the First District’s Cordeck Sales, Inc. v. Construction Systems, Inc. (382 Ill.App.3d 334(1st. Dist. 2008)) ruling – a case viewed with near-Biblical reverence in Illinois mechanics lien circles – that a mechanics lien won’t be invalidated for constructive fraud simply because its inflated.  There must be an overstatement “in combination” with other record evidence that allows the court to infer fraudulent intent.  Here, there was no additional fraud evidence and the Court reinstated the subcontractor’s lien claim.

Quantum Meruit/Unjust Enrichment

The Court sustained the trial court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s equitable counts of quantum meruit and unjust enrichment.  The general rule is that a subcontractor like plaintiff can’t recover for unjust enrichment where the entire work to be performed by the subcontractor is under a contract with the general contractor.  See Premier Electrical Construction Co. v. La Salle National Bank, 132 Ill. App. 3d 485, 496 (1st Dist. 1985). 

In such a case (no privity between owner and subcontractor), the general contractor has the power to employ whom he chooses and the owner is entitled to presume that any subcontracting work is being done for the contractor; not the owner.  Since there is normally no direct contract between a subcontractor and the owner, a subcontractor can’t claim that its work unjustly enriched the owner.

So, unless the subcontractor proves that it dealt directly with a property owner, its exclusive remedy against an owner is a statutory, mechanics lien suit.  Swansea Concrete Products, Inc. v. Distler, 126 Ill. App. 3d 927, 932 (5th Dist. 1984).  If the subcontractor misses the time deadlines to record its lien (four months, usually) or fails to timely file suit to foreclose the lien (two years post-completion of job), the subcontractor can’t then try to recover against the property owner under quantum meruit or unjust enrichment. 

Here, since the plaintiff’s contract was with the general contractor and not the owner, the plaintiff’s remedy against the general contractor was for breach of contract and its remedy against the owner was a mechanics’ lien suit.  As a result, the plaintiff’s quantum meruit and unjust enrichment claims were properly dismissed.

Afterwords: Even though the case is now several years old, Springfield Heating has continued relevance in construction lien litigation because it is the First District’s most recent word on the showing a property owner must make to prove a subcontractor’s constructive fraud when attempting to defeat a lien on the owner’s property.  Clearly, a numerical overcharge isn’t enough to defeat a lien. 

The owner must show additional “plus factors” which signals  fraudulent intent by the lien claimant.  The case also further supports the black-letter proposition that a subcontractor’s sole remedy against a property owner is a mechanics’ lien suit.  This rule will always apply unless the subcontractor can prove that the owner specifically requested or induced the subcontractor’s labor and materials on the owner’s property.

 

 

“Mirror-Image” Contract Acceptance: 7th Circuit Finds Attorneys’ Fees Provision in Invoice Not Binding on Food Buyer

VLM Food Trading International, Inc. v. Illinois Trading Co., (http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/14-2776/14-2776-2016-01-21.pdf?ts=1453404644) considers whether a seller can recover attorneys’ fees where the contract doesn’t provide for fees but the invoices sent after the goods are shipped do have fee-shifting language.   

The Seventh Circuit held that the invoice fee-shifting clause does not bind the buyer.

The Contract Chronology: The plaintiff foods seller would submit a purchase order to defendant that stated the product, price, quantity and delivery locus.  The defendant, in turn, would send a confirming e-mail to the plaintiff.  After that, the plaintiff shipped the goods to the defendant and later sent a “trailing” invoice to the defendant.

The first appearance of the fee-shifting language in the contracting sequence were found in the trailing invoices sent after the seller’s items were shipped to the defendant.

The main dispute centered on when the contract was formed and whether the trailing invoices’ fees provisions were part of the contract. 

An international treaty – the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (the “Convention”) – happened to govern this dispute.  The Convention applies a derivation of the common law “mirror image” rule of contract interpretation: an acceptance must “mirror” the offer or else it’s construed as a counter-offer.  

Under the mirror image rule, any additional terms or qualifications to the offer are considered proposed modifications.  A party doesn’t have to object to a proposed modification to exclude (reject) it.  Any term not contained in the offer and acceptance simply do not bind the parties.  What’s more, one’s silence or inactivity doesn’t equal acceptance of the proposed offer changes.  A party can only accept the terms through a statement or conduct.

The Seventh Circuit held that the plaintiff’s purchase orders were the offer, and the buyer’s confirming e-mails were the acceptance.  Any terms proposed outside the scope of the purchase orders or emails were not part of the parties’ agreement.  Since the plaintiff’s trailing invoices (and their fee-shifting and interest language) were sent after the acceptance, they didn’t bind the buyer.

The Court rejected the plaintiff’s trade usage argument – that buyer assented to the fee provision by not objecting to the invoice language.  Again, under the mirror image rule, the buyer’s silence isn’t considered acceptance.  The Court also found that trade usage only applies where there is contractual ambiguity.  Here, the contract was clear and so there was no reason to consider any course of conduct or trade usage evidence.

Finally, the Court found the defendant did not manifest an intent to adhere to the invoice fee language.  The key factor on this point was the trailing invoices were sent to defendant’s generic billing address; they weren’t sent to a specific corporate decision-maker. 

Take-aways:

VLM is interesting reading to me since I’ve encountered this exact fact pattern several times through the years in my commercial litigation practice.  The case chronicles a typical multi-step goods contract involving commercial entities.  

In a case where an international treaty doesn’t govern, fee language can be considered part of the contract under the Uniform Commercial Code if it is standard practice in an industry to have after-the-fact fee provisions in invoices or the parties’ course of conduct shows an intent to hew to the invoice fee-shifting clause. 

VLM offers a useful analysis of the factors a court considers when determining whether after-the-fact contractual terms can bind the parties.

 

 

 

Corporate Successor Liability: Continuation and Fraud Exceptions (IL Law)

Advocate Financial Group, LLC v. 5434 North Winthrop, 2015 IL App (2d) 150144 spotlights the “mere continuation” and fraud exceptions to the general rule of no successor liability – a successor corporation isn’t responsible for debts of predecessor – in a creditor’s efforts to collect a judgment from a business entity that is twice removed from the original judgment debtor.

The plaintiff obtained a breach of contract judgment against the developer defendant (Company 1) who transferred the building twice after the judgment date. The second building transfer was to a third-party (Company 3) who ostensibly had no relation to Company 1. The sale from Company 1 went through another entity – Company 2 – that was unrelated to Company 1.

Plaintiff alleged that Company 1 and Company 3 combined to thwart plaintiff’s collection efforts and sought the turnover of the building so plaintiff could sell it and use the proceeds to pay down the judgment. The trial court granted the turnover motion on the basis that Company 3 was the “continuation” of Company 1 in light of the common personnel between the companies. The appeals court reversed though. It found that further evidence was needed on the continuation exception but hinted that the fraud exception might apply instead to wipe out the Company 1-to Company 2- to Company 3 property transfer.

On remand, the trial court found that the fraud exception (successor can be liable for predecessor debts where they fraudulently collude to avoid predecessor’s debts) indeed applied and found the transfer of the building to Company 3 was a sham transfer and again ordered Company 3 to turn the building over to the plaintiff. Company 3 appealed.

The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s judgment and in doing so, provided a useful summary of the principles that govern when one business entity can be held responsible for another entity’s debts.

In Illinois, a corporation that purchases the assets of another corporation is generally not liable for the debts or liabilities of the transferor corporation. The rule’s purpose is to protect good faith purchasers from unassumed liability and seeks to foster the fluidity of corporate assets.

The “fraudulent purpose” exception to the rule of no successor liability applies where a transaction is consummated for the fraudulent purpose of escaping liability for the seller’s obligations.

The “mere continuation” exception to the nonsuccessor liability rule requires a showing that the successor entity “maintains the same or similar management and ownership, but merely wears different clothes.” The test is not whether the seller’s business operation continues in the purchaser, but whether the seller’s corporate entity continues in the purchaser.

The key continuation question is always identity of ownership: does the “before” company and “after” company have the same officers, directors, and stockholders?

In Advocate Financial, the factual oddity here concerned Company 2 – the intermediary. It was unclear whether Company 2 abetted Company 1 in its efforts to shake the plaintiff creditor. The court affirmed the trial court’s factual finding that Company 2 was a straw purchaser from Company 1.

The court focused on the abbreviated time span between the two transfers – Company 2 sold to Company 3 within days of buying the building from Company 1 – in finding that Company 2 was a straw purchaser. The court also pointed to evidence at trial that Company 1 was negotiating the ultimate transfer to Company 3 before the sale to Company 2 was even complete.

Taken together, the court agreed with the trial court that the two transfers (Company 1 to Company 2; Company 2 to Company 3) constituted an integrated, “pre-arranged” attempt to wipe out Company 1’s judgment debt to plaintiff.

Afterwords: This case illustrates that a court will scrutinize property transfers that utilize middle-men that only hold the property for a short period of times (read: for only a few days).

Where successive property transfers occur within a compressed time window and the ultimate corporate buyer has substantial overlap (in terms of management personnel) with the first corporate seller, a court can void the transaction and deem it as part of a fraudulent effort to evade one of the first seller’s creditors.