Category: Federal Courts

Contractual Indemnity Clause May Apply to Direct Action in Bond Offering Snafu; No Joint-Work Copyright Protection for PPM – IL ND

The Plaintiff in UIRC-GSA Holdings, Inc. v. William Blair & Company, 2017 WL 3706625 (N.D.Ill. 2017), sued its investment banker for copyright infringement and professional negligence claiming the banker used the plaintiff’s protected intellectual property – private placement memoranda – to get business from other clients.  The parties previously executed an engagement agreement (“Agreement”) which required the banker to facilitate plaintiff’s purchase of real estate through bond issues.

The banker denied infringing plaintiff’s copyrights and counterclaimed for breach of contract, contractual indemnity and tortious interference with contract.  Plaintiff moved to dismiss all counterclaims.

In partially granting and denying the (12(b)(6)) motion to dismiss the counterclaims, the Northern District examined the pleading elements for joint-author copyright infringement and tortious interference claims and considered the reach of contractual indemnification provisions.

The counterclaiming banker first asserted that it was a joint owner of the private placement documents and sought an accounting of the plaintiff’s profits generated through use of the materials.  Rejecting this argument, the Court stated the Copyright’s definition of a ‘joint work’: “a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that the authors’ work be merged into inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole.” 17 U.S.C. 101.

To establish co-authorship, the copyright plaintiff must establish (1) an intent to create a joint work, and (2) independently copyrightable contributions to the material.  The intent prong simply means the two (or more) parties intended to work together to create a single product; not that they specifically agreed to be legal co-copyright holders.

To meet the independently copyrightable element (the test’s second prong), the Court noted that “ideas, refinements, and suggestions” are not copyrightable.  Instead, the contributed work must possess a modicum of creativity vital to a work’s end product and commercial viability.

Here, while the counter-plaintiff alleged an intent to create a joint work, it failed to allege any specific contributions to the subject private placement documents.  Without specifying any copyrightable contributions to the documents, the investment firm failed to satisfy the pleading standards for a joint ownership copyright claim.

The court next considered the banker’s indemnification claim – premised on indemnity (one party promises to compensate another for any loss) language in the Agreement. The provision broadly applied to all claims against the counter-plaintiff arising from or relating to the Agreement.  The plaintiff argued that by definition, the indemnity language didn’t apply to direct actions between the parties and only covered third-party claims (claims brought by someone other than plaintiff or defendant).

The Court rejected this argument and found the indemnity language ambiguous.  The discrepancy between the Agreement’s expansive indemnification language in one section and other Agreement sections that spoke to notice requirements and duties to defend made it equally plausible the indemnity clause covered both third-party and first-party/direct actions.  Because of this textual conflict, the Court held it was premature to dismiss the claim without discovery on the parties’ intent.

The court also sustained the banker’s tortious interference counterclaim against plaintiff’s motion to dismiss.  The counter-plaintiff alleged the plaintiff sued and threatened to continue suing one of the counter-plaintiff’s clients (and a competitor of the plaintiff’s) to stop the client from competing with the plaintiff in the bond market.  While the act of filing a lawsuit normally won’t support a tortious interference claim, where a defendant threatens litigation to dissuade someone from doing business with a plaintiff can state a tortious interference claim.

Take-aways:

Contractual indemnity provisions are construed like any other contract.  If the text is clear, it will be enforced as written.  In drafting indemnity clauses, the parties should take pains to clarify whether it applies only to third-party claims or if it also covers direct actions between the parties.  Otherwise, the parties risk having to pay the opposing litigant’s defense fees.

Filing a lawsuit alone, isn’t enough for a tortious interference claim.  However, the threat of litigation to dissuade someone from doing business with another can be sufficient business interference to support such a claim.

Joint ownership in copyrighted materials requires both an intent for joint authorship and copyrightable contributions from each author to merit legal protection.

 

Random Florida-to-Illinois Texts, Emails and Phone Calls Not Enough to Subject Fla. LLC to IL Jurisdiction

In McGlasson v. BYB Extreme Fighting Series, LLC, 2017 WL 2193235 (C.D.Ill. 2017), the plaintiff sued a Florida LLC and two Florida residents for pilfering the plaintiff’s idea to host MMA fights on cruise ships off the coast of Florida.

Plaintiff claimed that after he sent a rough video of the concept to them, the defendants hijacked the concept and then formed their own MMA-at-sea event, causing the plaintiff monetary damages.

All defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims on the basis that they weren’t subject to Illinois jurisdiction.

The Court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss and in doing so, discussed the requisite contacts for an Illinois court to exercise jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant who commits an intentional tort.

In breach of contract actions, personal jurisdiction turns on whether a defendant purposefully avails itself or the privilege of doing business in the forum state. With an intentional tort defendant, by contrast, the court looks at whether a defendant “purposefully directed” his conduct at the forum state.

Purposely directing activity at a state requires a finding of (1) intentional conduct, (2) expressly aimed at the forum state, with (3) defendant’s knowledge the effects would be felt in the forum state.  If plaintiff makes all three showings, he establishes that a defendant purposefully directed its activity at the forum state.

A plaintiff in an intentional tort case cannot, however, rely on his own unilateral activity to support jurisdiction over a defendant.  Similarly, a defendant’s contact with a third party with no connection to a forum state isn’t relevant to the jurisdictional analysis.

Here, the lone Illinois contacts alleged of defendants were a handful of emails, phone calls and text messages sent to the Illinois resident plaintiff.  To strengthen his case for jurisdiction over the Florida defendants, plaintiff alleged he suffered an economic injury in Illinois.

Rejecting plaintiff’s argument, the court viewed e-mail as not existing “in any location at all:”  instead, it bounces from server to server and the connection between where an e-mail is opened and where a lawsuit is filed is too weak a link to subject an out-of-state sender to jurisdiction in a foreign state.

The Court also noted that (a plaintiff’s) suffering economic injury in Illinois isn’t enough, standing alone, to confer personal jurisdiction over a foreign resident.  The focus is instead whether the defendant’s conduct “connects him to [Illinois] in a meaningful way.”

Since plaintiff’s MMA-at-sea idea had no connection to Illinois and the defendant’s sporadic phone calls, emails and texts weren’t enough to tie him to Illinois, the Court lacked personal jurisdiction over the Florida defendants.

Take-aways:

1/ In intentional tort setting, a foreign defendant’s conduct must be purposefully directed at a forum state for that state to exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendant;

2/ plaintiff’s unilateral actions vis a vis an out-of-state defendant don’t factor into the jurisdictional calculus;

3/ A defendant’s episodic emails, texts and phone calls to an Illinois resident likely won’t be enough to subject the defendant to personal jurisdiction in Illinois.

 

Defendant Doesn’t Abandon Counterclaim By Failing to Replead It In Response to Amended Complaint – Ohio Fed. Court

I recently faced this procedural quandary: Plaintiff (that’s us) filed a complaint.  Defendant responded by filing an answer and counterclaim.  After receiving court leave, and before responding to the counterclaim, we amended the complaint.  Defendant answered the amended complaint and filed affirmative defenses but did not replead its counterclaim.

Defendant later threatened to default us if we didn’t answer its prior counterclaim.  I argued that the earlier counterclaim was extinguished by the amended complaint since the defendant didn’t file a counterclaim to it.  The defendant thought otherwise.  Ultimately, to avoid spending time and money on a collateral issue, I answered the counterclaim – even though I don’t think I had to.

My research revealed a definite split of authority on the issue.  Some courts hold that an amended pleading supersedes not only the original complaint (that’s obvious) but also an earlier counterclaim to the superseded complaint.  Others take the opposite tack and find that a counterclaim is separate from the answer and that even where a complaint is withdrawn and amended, the prior counterclaim still remains and must be answered.

Mathews v. Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, 2014 WL 4748472 reflects a court weighing the facts of a given case in deciding whether a defendant must replead its counterclaim or can stand on the one it previously filed.

The plaintiffs sued alleging their disability retirement benefits were wrongly denied.  The pension fund defendant filed an answer and counterclaim to recover overpaid benefits. The plaintiff later filed an Amended Complaint to which the defendant answered but did not re-assert a counterclaim.  Plaintiff moved for judgment on the pleadings based on the absence of a counterclaim with defendant’s answer to the amended pleading.  The defendant then moved for leave to file a counterclaim to the Amended Complaint.  Plaintiff opposed the motion.

Siding with the defendant, the Ohio Federal court looked to the interplay between Federal Rules 13 and 15 and noted that “courts are divided” on whether a party must replead a counterclaim in response to an amended complaint.

Federal Rule 13 requires a pleading to state compulsory counterclaims and allows it to allege permissive counterclaims.

Federal Rule 15(a)(3) provides that, “[u]nless the court orders otherwise, any required response to an amended pleading must be made within the time remaining to respond to the original pleading or within 14 days after service of the amended pleading, whichever is later.”

Some courts interpret this to mean that a defendant must replead a counterclaim in response to an amended complaint or it abandons or waives the right to pursue the counterclaim* while others do not require a defendant to replead a counterclaim with its response to an amended complaint.**

Still, a third line of cases decides the question on a case-by-case basis: it considers whether plaintiff received notice of the counterclaim, whether the defendant pursued the counterclaim and whether plaintiff will suffer unfair prejudice if the prior counterclaim proceeds.

The Court ultimately followed the latter case authorities; it weighed the equities to decide whether the defendant abandoned its counterclaim.  In allowing the defendant to file a counterclaim to the plaintiff’s Amended Complaint, the Court noted that Plaintiff had been on notice for several months that defendant intended to pursue its counterclaim and even replied to the counterclaim.

The Court also cited Plaintiff’s failure to establish prejudice if the Defendant was allowed to file a counterclaim. The Court rejected plaintiff’s judicial economy argument by noting that discovery was already closed when plaintiff moved for judgment on the pleadings and the proposed amended answer and counterclaim injected no new facts to the previously filed counterclaim.

Afterwords: When a complaint is amended it is treated as abandoned.  However, if a defendant filed a counterclaim along with its answer to the abandoned complaint, there is case authority (not just in Ohio but in other states, too) for the proposition that the counterclaim is not extinguished and the plaintiff still must answer it.

Mathews and cases like it demonstrate that the safe procedural play is for a defendant to replead its counterclaim with its answer to an amended pleading.  Otherwise, the defendant may have to defend against a claim that it waived its counterclaim by not refiling it in response to the amended pleading.

 

 

* Gen. Mills, Inc. v. Kraft Foods Global, Inc., 487 F.3d 1368, 1376–77 (Fed.Cir.2007); Bremer Bank, Nat’l Ass’n, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21055, at *40–41, 2009 WL 702009   Nat’l Mut. Cas. Ins. Co. v. Snider, 996 F.Supp.2d 1173, 1180 n. 8 (M.D.Ala.2014)

** Performance Sales & Mktg. LLC v. Lowe’s Cos., No. 5:07–cv–00140, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117835, at *9 n. 2, 2013 WL 4494687 (W.D.N.C. Aug. 20, 2013); Ground Zero Museum Workshop v. Wilson, 813 F.Supp.2d 678, 705–06 (D.Md. Aug.24, 2011)

*** Davis v. Beard, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30461, at *12–13, 2014 WL 916947 (E.D.Mo. Mar. 10, 2014) Hitachi Med. Sys. Am., Inc. v. Horizon Med. Grp., 2008 WL 5723531 (N.D.Ohio 2008) ; AVKO Educ. Research Found. v. Morrow, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49463, at *30, 2013 WL 1395824 (E.D.Mich. Apr. 5, 2013); Cairo Marine Serv. v. Homeland Ins. Co., No. 4:09CV1492, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117365, at *3–4, 2010 WL 4614693 (E.D.Mo. Nov. 4, 2010)