15-Year ‘Course of Dealing’ Clarifies Oral Agreement for Tax Sale Notices – IL First Dist.

The would-be tax deed buyer in Wheeler Financial, Inc. v. Law Publishing Co., 2018 IL App (1st) 171495 claimed the publisher defendant’s erroneous sale date in a required tax sale notice thwarted its purchase of a pricey Chicago property.

A jury found for the publisher defendant on the buyer’s breach of oral contract claim since the plaintiff failed to properly vet the draft “Take Notice” (the statutory notice provided by a tax deed applicant that gives notice to the owner) supplied by the defendant before publication. The plaintiff appealed.

Affirming the jury verdict, the First District discusses the nature of express versus implied contracts, the use of non-pattern jury instructions and when course of dealing evidence is admissible to explain the terms of an oral agreement.

Course of dealing – Generally

There was no formal written contract between the parties. But there was a 15-year business relationship where the plaintiff would send draft tax deed petition notices to the defendant who would in turn, publish the notices as required by the Illinois tax code. This decade-and-a-half course of dealing was the basis for jury verdict for the publisher defendant.

Section 223 of the Restatement (Second) of Contracts defines a course of dealing as a sequence of previous conduct between parties to an agreement “which is fairly regarded as establishing a common basis of understanding for interpreting their expressions and other conduct.”

A course of dealing “gives meaning to or supplements or qualifies their agreement” and can be considered when determining the terms of an oral contract. Where contract terms are uncertain or doubtful and the parties have – by their conduct – placed a construction on the agreement that is reasonable, such a construction will be adopted by the court. [¶ ¶ 77-78]

Course of Dealing – The Evidence

Here, the course of dealing proof was found in both trial testimony and documents admitted in evidence.

At trial, current and former employees of the publisher defendant and plaintiff’s agent all testified it was the parties’ common practice for defendant to first provide draft Take Notices to plaintiff for its review and approval prior to publication. E-mails introduced in evidence at trial corroborated this practice.

In addition, plaintiff’s affiliated tax lien company’s own handbook contained a published policy of plaintiff reviewing all Take Notices for accuracy before the notices were published. [¶¶ 35, 83-85]

The appeals court agreed with the jury that the defendant sufficiently proved the parties course of dealing was that defendant would give plaintiff a chance to review the Take Notices before publication. And since the plaintiff failed to adhere to its contractual obligation to review and apprise the defendant of any notice errors, plaintiff could not win on its breach of contract claim. (This is because a breach of contract plaintiff’s prior material breach precludes it from recovering on a breach of contract claim.)

Jury Instructions and A Tacit Exculpatory Clause?

Since no Illinois pattern jury instruction defines “course of dealing,” the trial court instructed the jury based on Wald v. Chicago Shippers Ass’n’s (175 Ill.App.3d 607 (1988) statement that a prior course of dealing can define or qualify an uncertain oral agreement. [¶ 96] Since Wald accurately stated Illinois law on the essence and reach of course of dealing evidence, it was proper for the jury to consider the non-pattern jury instruction.

The court then rejected plaintiff’s argument that allowing the legal publisher to avoid liability was tantamount to creating an implied exculpatory clause. The plaintiff claimed that if the publisher could avoid liability for its erroneous notice date, the parties’ agreement was illusory since it allowed the defendant to breach with impunity.

The court disagreed. It held that the parties’ course of dealing created mutual obligations on the parties: plaintiff was obligated to review defendant’s Take Notices and advise of any errors while defendant was required to republish any corrected notices for free. These reciprocal duties placed enforceable obligations on the parties.

Afterwords:

Where specifics of an oral agreement are lacking, but the parties’ actions over time plainly recognize and validate a business relationship, a court will consider course of dealing evidence to give content to the arrangement.
Where course of dealing evidence establishes that a breach of contract plaintiff has assumed certain obligations, the plaintiff’s failure to perform those requirements will doom its breach of contract claim.

 

 

Nevada LLC Members’ Privilege to Tortiously Interfere with Business Relationships Has Limits – IL ND

When the former President of a lighting company started a competing venture, his former employer sued for damages under the Illinois Deceptive Trade Practices Act (IDTPA) and for breach of contract. The ex-President then countersued for unpaid commissions under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA) and sued the individual members of the LLC plaintiff for tortious interference with advantageous business relationship. All parties moved to dismiss.

Green Light National, LLC v. Kent, 2018 WL 4384298, examines, among other things, the extra-territorial reach of the IWPCA and the scope of a corporate officer’s privilege to interfere with a rival’s business relationships.

An IDTPA plaintiff can only bring a claim where the wrongful conduct occurred “primarily and substantially in Illinois.” Factors include: (1) the place of plaintiff’s residence, (2) where the misrepresentation was made, (3) where the damage occurred, and (4) whether the plaintiff communicated with the defendant in Illinois.

Here, the court found factors (1) and (3) pointed toward Illinois as the locus of the challenged conduct. Plaintiff alleged the defendants used plaintiff’s lighting installations on the competitor’s website. And since plaintiff was an Illinois corporate entity, it was likely that plaintiff sustained damage in Illinois.  This made the case different from others where the lone connection to Illinois was a nationwide website. On the current record, the court wasn’t able to determine whether factors (2) and (4) weighed towards a finding that defendants’ misconduct happened in Illinois. As a result, the Court held that the plaintiff alleged a sufficient IDTPA claim to survive defendants’ motion to dismiss.

Next, the court sustained plaintiff’s breach of employment contract claim. The defendants moved to dismiss this claim on the basis that a 2013 Employment Agreement was superseded by a 2015 Operating Agreement which documented plaintiffs’ corporate restructuring. Under Illinois law, an earlier contract is superseded by a later contract where (1) both contracts deal with the same subject matter, (2) two contracts contain inconsistencies which evince the conclusion that the parties intended for the second contract to control their agreement and vitiate the former contract, and (3) the later contract reveal no intention of the parties to incorporate the terms of the earlier contract.

There were too many facial dissimilarities between the 2013 and 2015 documents for the court to definitively find that the former agreement merged into the latter one.

Turning to the defendant’s counterclaims, the Court sustained the tortious interference claim against two of the LLC members. In Illinois, corporate officers are protected from personal liability for acts committed on behalf of the corporation. Corporate officers and directors are privileged to use their business judgment in carrying out corporate business. So long as a corporate officer is acting in furtherance of a corporation’s legitimate business interest, the officer is shielded from individual liability. The same rule that protects corporate officers for decisions made on behalf of their company applies with equal force to LLC member decisions made for the LLC.

This LLC member privilege to interfere isn’t inviolable though.  Where the member acts maliciously – meaning intentionally and without justification – he abuses his qualified privilege. Here, the defendant alleged two LLC members made knowingly false statements about the defendant. These allegations, if true, were enough to make out a tortious interference with business relationships claim. The

The Court then denied the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss defendant’s IWPCA claim. The plaintiff argued that since defendant was not an Illinois resident, he couldn’t sue under the IWPCA since that statute lacks extraterritorial reach. The Court rejected this argument as Illinois law allows non-residents to sue under the IWPCA where they perform work in Illinois for an Illinois-based employer. The counter-plaintiff’s allegations that he made approximately 15 trips to Chicago over several months to perform work for the defendant was enough – at the motion to dismiss stage – to provide a hook for an IWPCA claim.

Afterwords:

1/ Where a later contract involves the same subject matter as an earlier contract and there are facial inconsistencies between them, a Court will likely find the later agreement supersedes the earlier one;

2/ Corporate officers (and LLC members) are immune from suit when taking action to pursue a legitimate business interest of the corporate entity. The privilege is lost though where a corporate officer engages in intentional and unjustified conduct;

3/ A non-resident can sue under the IWPCA where he/she alleges work was performed in Illinois for an Illinois employer.