Homeowner’s Piercing Claim Against Contractor Fails – Delaware Chancery Court

Since Delaware’s storied Chancery Court is widely regarded as the alpha and omega of corporate law venues, this opinion from Halloween eve of this year captured my attention.

The issues addressed in Doberstein v. G-P Industries, Inc. (http://courts.delaware.gov/opinions/download.aspx?ID=231700) concern the scope of the Chancery Court’s jurisdiction and the quantum of pleading specificity needed to state a piercing the corporate veil claim.

Plaintiff, who lived most of the year in Switzerland, sued the defendants for failing to timely construct renovations to her Delaware home.  All told, the plaintiff paid over $500K to the defendant for only about $300K worth of work (according to the plaintiff’s construction expert).  The plaintiff brought legal (fraud, breach of contract) and equitable claims (unjust enrichment, piercing the corporate veil, negligent misrepresentation (i.e. “equitable fraud”) against the corporate and individual defendants.

The Delaware court struck the equitable claims for failure to state a claim and dismissed the ancillary law claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The piercing claim failed because the plaintiff conflated (a) fraudulent conduct by the corporate defendant with (b) abuse of the corporate form by the corporation’s controlling shareholder.  The former is actionable under a fraud theory while the latter scenario gives rise to a piercing the corporate veil of limited liability claim.

 

A piercing plaintiff must do more than formulaically  allege that a corporation is the alter ego of another or of its main shareholder, though. He must instead plead facts that show a corporate shareholder abused the corporate form in order to defraud an innocent third party.

Here, since plaintiff’s piercing claims only alleged fraud by the defendants in connection with charging for construction work they didn’t do, there were no allegations that the corporate form was abused or that the individual defendant siphoned corporate funds.

The court also dismissed the plaintiff’s negligent misrepresentation count. Also called “equitable fraud”, a negligent misrepresentation claim under Delaware law generally requires the existence of a fiduciary relationship and the abuse of that relationship by one of the parties.

A contractual relationship between two sophisticated parties does not equate to a fiduciary one.  As a result, the court found that the plaintiff’s remedy lies in a breach of contract action at law (as opposed to an action in equity).

Finally, the court dismissed the plaintiff’s unjust   enrichment count since there was an express contract between the parties. An unjust enrichment claim cannot co-exist with a breach of express contract one.

The court then found that it lacked jurisdiction over the remaining law counts for breach of contract, fraud and fraudulent concealment.

The Delaware Chancery Court is a court of limited jurisdiction. It has jurisdiction only in three settings: (1) where a party seeks to invoke an equitable right; (2) where the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy at law; and (3) where there is a statutory delegation of subject matter jurisdiction. The prototypical equitable claims are those involving fiduciary duties that arise in the context of trusts, estates and corporations.

Where a claim contains both legal and equitable features, the Chancery court does have discretion to resolve the legal portions of the controversy. However, where the equitable claims are dismissed and there is no basis for the court to assert jurisdiction over the remaining legal claims, the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over the legal claims and they will be dismissed.

Here, once the plaintiff’s equitable claims (unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation) were disposed of, there was no “hook” for the court to retain jurisdiction over the legal claims.

Take-aways:

The case solidifies proposition that a plaintiff who seeks to pierce the corporate veil must show fraud in connection with an abuse of the corporate form. If the fraud relates to conduct by the corporation and not to a misuse of the corporate form (i.e. as an alter-ego or instrumentality of the key shareholder), the plaintiff’s remedy is an action at law against the corporation; not the individual corporate agent.

The case also provides a useful summary of what types of claims the Delaware Chancery Court will entertain and when it will handle legal claims that are filed in   conjunction with equitable ones.

 

 

LOI From Hell (?) – It’s Too Illusory For Car Dealership Manager to Enforce – IL 1st Dist.

A complicated Letter of Intent (LOI) involving parties to a planned car sales venture lies at the heart of Dicosola v. Ryan, 2015 IL App(1st) 150007, a case that addresses the level of consideration required to support a written contract in Illinois.

The plaintiff alleged that under the LOI, the defendant was to invest $1M with the plaintiff who would, along with her business partner, use those funds to establish and run the dealership.  In return for her investment, the defendant would get a 10% share of the business.  The LOI also called for the defendant to establish a 401(k) account for the benefit of the parties. 

Decried as a “drafting nightmare” by the court for its chaotic structure, the LOI was silent on the timing: it didn’t say when the dealership would open, how plaintiff would utilize defendant’s funds or even what the plaintiff’s and her partner’s roles were once the dealership went live.

When the defendant pulled out of the deal, the plaintiff sued for breach of contract and specific performance.  The trial court dismissed the complaint with prejudice and the plaintiff appealed.

Held: Dismissal affirmed

Reasons/Rules:

An LOI, like any other contract, must show offer, acceptance, consideration as well as definite and certain terms.

Consideration means a bargained-for exchange of promises or performances and can consist of a promise, an act or a forbearance. Consideration requires one party getting and the other giving something of value.  Otherwise, it’s an illusory promise.  A promise is illusory where the promisor isn’t really promising to do anything or where his promised performance is optional.

Contractual performance will deemed optional (and illusory) where there is no fixed time or duration for the contemplated services or where one parties obligations are terminable at will.

Here, the plaintiff’s promise was illusory since the LOI didn’t specify when she would perform general manager services for the inchoate dealership. Since the LOI lacked a specific start and end date, the Court held the LOI was too indefinite to be enforced.  The lack of clarity on the timing question led the court to conclude there was no consideration to support the plaintiff’s breach of contract claims. (¶¶ 18-20)

Afterwords:

1 – Parties should craft their business agreements with enough specifics for it to be enforced. By only providing aspirational language (“I will do this” or “I plan to do this”) with no specific timing requirements, a contracting party risks a contract being deemed illusory and unenforceable.

2 – Where one party to a contract’s obligations are to occur in the future, the contract language should provide an end date or duration for those services.

UCC Bars Bank Customer Suit Versus Bank For Estranged Husband’s Unauthorized Account Withdrawals

Kaplan v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA (2015 WL 2358240 (N.D.Ill. 2015)), starkly illustrates the challenges a bank customer faces when trying to pin liability on a bank that pays out on a fraudulent transaction involving the customer’s account.  There, the plaintiff bank customer sued JPMorgan Chase for breach of contract and negligence after the plaintiff’s estranged husband was able to siphon about $1M from two of plaintiff’s accounts over an 18-month period starting in 2009.  Plaintiff filed suit in 2014.

The plaintiff claimed the bank breached its contractual obligations and its duty of care by allowing the husband to forge plaintiff’s name on two account signature cards which enabled him to transfer the money from the accounts behind plaintiff’s back.

The Northern District granted summary judgment for the bank and in doing so, provides a good primer on a bank customer’s duties to monitor account statements and the reach of a bank’s liability for unauthorized withdrawals from a customer’s account.

Summary judgment Standards

To defeat summary judgment, a plaintiff must show there is a genuine disputed material fact that can only be resolved after a full trial on the merits

A disputed fact is “material” if it might affect the outcome of the case. A dispute is “genuine” where the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.

The moving party has the initial burden of showing that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law and can make this showing by establishing that the other party has no evidence on an issue that it has the burden of proof.

Once the moving party meets this burden, the nonmovant must come forward with specific facts that demonstrate there is a genuine issue for trial and may not rely on conclusions, allegations or a “scintilla” (a trace or spark http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scintilla) of evidence to show that facts exist that will defeat summary judgment.

The Bank-Customer Contractual Relationship

The signature card defines the relationship between plaintiff and the bank defendant. A contract between a bank and its depositor is created by signature cards and a deposit agreement.

The signature card here incorporated Account Rules and Regulations (“Account Rules”) by reference.  These Rules, in turn, required the Plaintiff to notify the bank of any errors or unauthorized items within 30 days of the date on which the error or unauthorized item was made available to the plaintiff. If the plaintiff failed to do so within that 30-day window, the error or item would be enforceable against her.

The unauthorized transfers occurred over an 18 month time span starting in 2009 and ending in 2011. But the plaintiff didn’t notify the bank until nearly a year later in April 2012. As a result, the plaintiff missed the Account Rules’ 30-day time limit.

The UCC – Article 4

Plaintiff’s claims were also too late under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).  Section 4-406 of the UCC provides that where a bank makes a statement available to a customer, the customer must exercise “reasonable promptness” in notifying the bank of any errors. This section also immunizes a bank from liability where it pays in good faith on an unauthorized signature or alteration and the customer doesn’t notify the bank within a reasonable time, “not exceeding 30 days.” 4-406(c)-(d)

The UCC contains a one-year repose period, too. Section 4-406(f) provides that regardless of whether a bank exhibits a lack of care in paying an item, if a customer fails to notify the bank of an unauthorized signature or alteration within one year of a statement being made available, the customer’s claim is barred.

The court held that since the bank filed affidavits stating that plaintiff had free on-line access to her accounts on a monthly basis, the bank “made available” the account information under the UCC. The court held making account information available under 4-406(c) did not require a customer’s physical receipt of the statements.

Turning to whether the bank exhibited good faith in allowing the plaintiff’s husband to withdraw nearly $1M from the accounts, the court noted that good faith is defined by the UCC as “honesty in fact and the observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing.” UCC 3-103(a)(4). Since the plaintiff came forth with no evidence that the bank knew either that the signature cards were forged by the husband or that he lacked authority to add himself as an account signer, there was no showing that the bank lacked good faith.

UCC Article 3

Another UCC section that barred the plaintiff’s claims was 3-118(g). This section provides a 3 year limitations period for claims involving conversion of an instrument, breach of warranty or to enforce any other UCC rights not covered by another section.

The discovery rule – a judge-made rule that delays the start of a statute of limitations until an injured plaintiff knows or reasonably should know she has been injured – doesn’t apply to claims that fall within 3-118(g). This is because applying a discovery rule to an unauthorized monetary transaction would undermine the UCC’s stated goals of finality, predictability, uniformity and efficiency in commercial transactions.

Take-aways:

1/ A bank defendant has an arsenal of statutory defenses under the UCC to actions brought by customers;

2/ The UCC’s goals of fostering fluidity in commercial transactions trumps any opposing claims of individual customers;

3/  Harmed bank customers will at least have a chance to defraying her economic damages by vigilantly reviewing account statements and promptly notifying her bank within 30 days of any statement discrepancies.