Tag: trespass to chattels

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.

Landlord Subject to Potential Bailment and Intentional Infliction Claims for Leaving Tenant’s Property On Sidewalk – IL ND

The Internet is awash in state-by-state summaries of what a landlord can and can’t do with property left behind by a residential tenant. The various abandoned property rules range from making the landlord do nothing, to requiring it to hold the tenant’s property for a fixed number of days, to sending formal notice to the tenant before disposing of the property. For a good summary of various state’s abandoned property laws, see here.  Chicago’s (where I practice) Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance (RLTO), widely viewed as pro-tenant in every way, requires a landlord to store the property for seven days before disposing of it. See RLTO 5-12-130(f)

Zissu v. IH2 Property Illinois, LP, 2016 WL 212937, examines what causes of action apply where a landlord puts an evicted tenant’s property on a city street and the property is destroyed or stolen as a result.

The plaintiffs, who were evicted in an earlier state court forcible detainer action, sued their ex-landlord in Federal court (the landlord was a Delaware business entity) alleging negligence, conversion, bailment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after the former landlord placed the plaintiff’s home furnishings, jewelry and personal documents on the sidewalk and the plaintiff’s property was stolen or damaged.

Granting in part and denying in part the landlord’s motion to dismiss, the court examined the pleading elements of the bailment, trespass to chattels and intentional infliction of emotional distress torts.

The court upheld the plaintiff’s bailment count. A bailment occurs where one party delivers goods or personal property to another who has agreed to accept the property and deal with it in a particular way.

To recover under a bailment theory, a plaintiff must allege: (1) an express or implied agreement to create a bailment, (2) delivery of the property to the bailee by the bailor, (3) the bailee’s acceptance of the property, and (4) the bailee’s failure to return the property or delivery of the property to the bailor in a damaged condition.

An implied, or “constructive,” bailment occurs where a defendant voluntarily receives a plaintiff’s property for some purpose other than that of obtaining ownership of the property. The implied bailment can be found with reference to the surrounding circumstances including (i) the benefits received by the parties, (ii) the parties’ intentions, (iii) the kind of property involved, and (iv) the opportunities for each party to exert control over the property.

The court held that the complaint’s allegations that the defendant actively took possession of the plaintiff’s property and removed it from the leased premises was sufficient to state a bailment claim under Federal notice pleading standards.

The court also sustained the plaintiff’s conversion and trespass to chattels claim. The crux of both of these claims is that a defendant either seized control of a plaintiff’s property (conversion) or interfered with a plaintiff’s property (trespass to chattels). A colorable conversion claim contains the added requirement that a plaintiff make a demand for possession – unless the defendant has already disposed of a plaintiff’s property; in which case a demand would be futile.

The court here found that the plaintiffs’ allegations that their former landlord dispossessed plaintiffs of their property stated a trespass to chattels and conversion claim for purposes of a motion to dismiss. The court also agreed with the plaintiff that a formal demand for the property would have been pointless since the defendant had already placed the plaintiffs’ property on the street and sidewalk next to the plaintiffs’ home.

Lastly, the court denied the defendant’s attempt to dismiss the plaintiff’s intentional infliction claim. An intentional infliction of emotional distress plaintiff must plead (1) extreme and outrageous conduct, (2) a defendant’s intent to inflict severe emotional distress on a plaintiff, and (3) the defendant’s conduct did in fact cause the plaintiff emotional distress.

Here, the court found that the plaintiffs’ claims that the defendant put expensive jewelry, medication and sensitive financial documents on the street in view of the whole neighborhood sufficiently stated an intentional infliction claim.

Afterwords:

This case presents an interesting illustration of some lesser-used and venerable torts (bailment, trespass to chattels) adapted to a modern-day fact pattern.

The continued vitality of the bailment and trespass to chattel theories shows that personal property rights still enjoy a privileged status in this society.

The case also serves as a reminder for landlords to check applicable abandoned property laws before disposing of a decamped tenant’s belongings.  As this case amply shows, a landlord who removes tenant property without notice to the tenant, does so at its peril and opens itself up to a future damages action.

 

 

 

Computer Fraud Suit Based On Real estate Records Fails – Illinois Northern District

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The Northern District of Illinois (Fidlar Technologies v. LPS Real Estate Data Solutions, 2015 WL 1059007 (N.D.Ill. 2015) granted summary judgment for a defendant real estate analytics firm in a computer fraud case filed by a software firm who makes paper real estate records available on-line for various county recorders offices across the country.

The plaintiff developed a program called “Laredo” that computerized real estate records and made them available to viewers for a fee.  The plaintiff sued when it found out that the defendant was using a web harvester to bypass plaintiff’s software controls and capture the electronic records.  The defendant’s harvester allowed it to disguise the amount of time it was spending on-line and so avoid paying print fees associated with the electronic data. 

The Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Claim

On its Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. s. 1030 (“CFAA”) claim, the Court found there was a lack of evidence of defendant’s intent to defraud based on defendant evading the printing fees.  The CFAA defines an intent to defraud as acting “willfully and with specific intent to deceive or cheat, usually for the purpose of getting financial gain for one’s self or causing financial loss to another.”

The court noted that defendant offered sworn testimony that printing real estate records was a minor part of its business and that it did pay the various counties the maximum monthly access fee for the real estate data.  The defendant also produced evidence that it used its “client” program (which could avoid the time tracking and printing charges) not only in fee-charging counties, but also in those that didn’t charge at all.  This bolstered its argument that the harvester’s fee-avoidance was an unintended consequence of the defendant’s program.

Siding with the defendant, the court applied the CFAA restrictively.  It found that the Act’s aim is to punish those who access computers with the intention of deleting, destroying, or disabling information they find.

Attempting to avoid paying for minutes and printing fees – the “damage” alleged to have been done by the defendant here – wasn’t the type of damage contemplated by the CFAA.  The mere copying of electronic information from a computer system isn’t enough to satisfy the CFAA’s damage requirement.  18 U.S.C. § 1030(e)(8).

Trespass to Chattels

The plaintiff’s trespass to chattels claim was also rejected.  Trespass to chattel is an archaic legal doctrine aimed at protecting the integrity of someone’s personal property.  To successfully claim trespass to chattels, a plaintiff i must show “direct physical interference.”

The plaintiff’s claim that the defendant’s web harvester commands “physically touched” plaintiff’s computers and “substantially interfered” with plaintiff’s computer network wasn’t supported by the evidence.

The court noted that any interference was plaintiff’s claimed loss of subscription revenue and loss of goodwill.  These losses didn’t equal a physical threat to the proper functioning of plaintiff’s servers.

Afterwords:

Fidlar represents a court narrowly applying the CFAA so that it doesn’t cover the type of economic loss (e.g. subscription fees, etc.) claimed here by the plaintiff.  The case also amply illustrates that a successful CFAA claimant must show that its computer equipment or system was physically damaged or its data destroyed.  Otherwise, the proper remedy lies in a breach of contract or trade secrets violation.