Tag: chose in action

Seventh Circuit Files: Court Voids LLC Member’s Attempt to Pre-empt LLC’s Suit Against That Member

In Carhart v. Carhart – Halaska International, LLC, (http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/14-2968/14-2968-2015-06-08.html) the plaintiff LLC member tried to shield himself from a lawsuit filed against him by the LLC by (1) taking an assignment of a third-party’s claim against the LLC; (2) getting and then registering a default judgment against the LLC; (3) seizing the LLC’s lone asset: its lawsuit against the plaintiff; and (4) buying the lawsuit for $10K.  This four-step progression allowed the plaintiff to extinguish the LLC’s claim against him.

Plaintiff was co-owner of the defendant LLC.  After a third-party sued the LLC in Minnesota Federal court (the “Minnesota Federal Case”), Plaintiff paid the third-party $150,000 for an assignment of that case.  Plaintiff then obtained a $240K default judgment against the LLC.

Meanwhile, the LLC, through its other owner, sued the plaintiff in Wisconsin State Court (the “Wisconsin State Case”) for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with plaintiff’s alleged plundering of the LLC.  While the Wisconsin State Case was pending, Plaintiff registered the Minnesota judgment against the LLC in Wisconsin Federal court.

Plaintiff, now a judgment creditor of the LLC, filed suit in Wisconsin Federal Court (the “Wisconsin Federal Case”) to execute on the $240K judgment against the LLC.  The Wisconsin District Court allowed the plaintiff to seize the LLC’s lone asset – the Wisconsin State Case (the LLC’s breach of fiduciary duty claim against plaintiff) – for $10,000.  This immunized the plaintiff from liability in the Wisconsin State Case as there was no longer a claim for the LLC to pursue against the plaintiff.  The LLC appealed.

The Seventh Circuit voided the sale of the Wisconsin State Case finding the sale price disproportionately low.

Under Wisconsin law, a chose in action is normally considered intangible property that can be assigned and seized to satisfy a judgment.  However, the amount paid for a chose in action must not be so low as to shock the conscience of the court.

In this case, the court branded the plaintiff a “troll of sorts”: it noted the plaintiff buying the LLC’s claim (the Wisconsin State Case) at a steep discount: the defendant paid $150,000 for an assignment of a third-party claim against the LLC and then paid only $10,000 for the LLC’s breach of fiduciary duty claim against plaintiff.

The court found that under Wisconsin law, the $10,000 the plaintiff paid for the LLC’s claim against him was conscience-shockingly low compared to the dollar value of the LLC’s claim.  The plaintiff did not purchase the LLC’s lawsuit in good faith.  The Seventh Circuit reversed the District Court’s validation of plaintiff’s $10K purchase so the LLC could pursue its breach of fiduciary duty claim against the plaintiff in the Wisconsin State Case.

Take-aways:

This seems like the right result.  The court guarded against a litigant essentially buying his way out of a lawsuit (at least it had the appearance of this) by paying a mere fraction of what the suit was possibly worth.  

The case serves as an example of a court looking beneath the surface of a what looks like a routine judgment enforcement tool (seizing assets of a judgment debtor) and adjusting the equities between the parties.  By voiding the sale, the LLC will now have an opportunity to pursue its breach of fiduciary duty claim against the plaintiff in state court. 

Assigning A Breach of Contract Claim In Illinois and The Available Defenses

Contract rights are assigned fairly often, especially in the mortgage loan and credit card contexts.  In the former mortgage scenario, it’s common for a promissory note to be assigned multiple times during the note’s lifespan.  When there’s eventually a note default, it becomes a challenge for the noteholder to trace how it came into the note’s possession.  Repeated note assignments also provide the note maker (person who signed the note) a ready-made defense to a lawsuit based on the note.  The noteholder plaintiff then has the burden of proving to the court that it has the right to sue on the note.

Because assignments are so prevalent and confusion often results as to who can enforce contract rights, it’s important from both plaintiff and defense sides to have a working knowledge of what claims can be assigned and what defenses are available to a a defendant sued by an assignee of a contract claim.

The basics: a person that has a claim against another has a “chose in action.”  Classic examples of a chose in action include a claim for money owed on a debt, a right to stock shares or a claim for damages in tort.  Black’s Law Dictionary 258 (8th ed. 2004)

Choses in action are generally assignable. An assignment transfers title to the chose in action to the assignee, who becomes the real party in interest.  The assignee of the chose in action may then sue on the claim in his or her own name.

An action brought by an assignee is subject to any defense or set-off existing before notice of the assignment is given to the defendant.  735 ILCS 5/2–403(a).  But the set-off or defense must relate specifically to the assigned claim.  It can’t pertain to something extraneous to that claim.

Example, if Company X assigns its 2015 breach of contract claim against Person Y to me and I sue Person Y, Person Y can’t raise as a defense a $1,000 claim Person Y has against Company X from a 2013 contract.  The two contracts are different and involve different underlying facts. Person Y can only defend based on the same 2015 contract Company X assigned.

Puritan Finance Corp. v. Bechstein Const. Corp. 2012 IL App(1st) 112261 illustrates what defenses a defendant has versus a contract claim assignee under the common law and under Article 9 of the UCC.

The plaintiff was the assignee of a bankrupt trucking company (the Assignor) that had previously done business with the defendant.  The Assignor was owed monies by the defendant and assigned its claim to the plaintiff, a secured creditor of the Assignor.

After the plaintiff sued, the defendant asserted defenses based on an unrelated claim it had against the Assignor before the plaintiff’s involvement.  The court granted judgment for the plaintiff after a bench trial for the full amount of its claim (about $22,000) and the defendant appealed.

Affirming the judgment for the assignee, the court first rejected the defendant’s set-off claim under Code Section 2-403(a).  Since the defendant’s set-off involved a contract that was separate from the one being sued on, the defendant couldn’t use this separate contract as a defense to the assignee’s lawsuit.

The defendant’s Article 9 defense was a closer call.  UCC Article 9 governs security interests in personal property as collateral to secure a debt.  Section 9-404(a) of the UCC (810 ILCS 5/9-404) provides that an account debtor can assert against the assignee (1) any defense he (the debtor) had against the assignor “arising from the transaction” giving rise to the assignee’s claim; and (2) any other defense the debtor has against the assignor that accrues before the debtor received notice of the assignment.

Here, the defendant argued that under paragraph (2) of 9-404, it could assert defenses that related to a separate contract between it (the defendant) and the Assignor.  The court disagreed and gave a narrow reading to Section 9-404.

It held that since the defendant didn’t and couldn’t yet file suit against the Assignor before the assignment of the contract to the assignee/plaintiff, the defendant’s claim hadn’t “accrued” within the meaning of Section 9-404.  As a result, judgment for the plaintiff was affirmed.

Afterwords:

– Where a defendant is sued by an assignee of a contract claim, it will be difficult to challenge the claim unless the defendant has claims or defenses against the assignor that are transactionally related to the assigned claim.  If the defendant’s defense relates to a separate, unrelated transaction, the defense or set-off will likely fail;

– Under Section 9-404, a defense “accrues” where the defendant actually has a viable cause of action against the assignor, such as where there has been a default in assignor’s payment obligations, instead of just a bare claim that a defendant is owed money on an unpaid invoice.