Tag: condition precedent

Pay-When-Paid Clause in Subcontract Not Condition Precedent to Sub’s Right to Payment – IL Court

Pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid clauses permeate large construction projects

In theory, the clauses protect a contractor from downstream liability where its upstream or hiring party (usually the owner) fails to pay.

Beal Bank Nevada v. Northshore Center THC, LLC, 2016 IL App (1st) 151697 examines the fine-line distinction between PIP and PWP contract terms. a lender sued to foreclose

The plaintiff lender sued to foreclose commercial property and named the general contractor (GC) and subcontractor (Sub) as defendants.  The Sub countersued to foreclose its nearly $800K lien and added a breach of contract claims against the GC.

In its affirmative defense to the Sub’s claim, the GC argued that payment from the owner to the GC was a condition precedent to the GC’s obligation to pay the Sub.  The trial court agreed with the GC and entered summary judgment for the GC.  The Sub appealed.

Result: Reversed.

Reasons:

The Subcontract provided the GC would pay the Sub upon certain events and arguably (it wasn’t clear) required the owner’s payment to the GC as a precondition to the GC paying the Sub.  The GC seized on this owner-to-GC payment language as grist for its condition precedent argument: that if the owner didn’t pay the GC, it (the GC) didn’t have to pay the Sub.

Under the law, a condition precedent is an event that must occur or an act that must be performed by one party to an existing contract before the other party is obligated to perform.  Where a  condition precedent is not satisfied, the parties’ contractual obligations cease.

But conditions precedent are not favored.  Courts will not construe contract language that’s arguably a condition precedent where to do so would result in a forfeiture (a complete denial of compensation to the performing party). (¶ 23)

The appeals court rejected the GC’s condition precedent argument and found the Subcontract had a PWP provision.  For support, the court looked to the contractual text and noted it attached two separate payment obligations to the GC – one was to pay the Sub upon “full, faithful and complete performance,”; the other, to make payment in accordance with Article 5 of the Subcontract which gave the GC a specific amount of time to pay the Sub after the GC received payment from the owner.

The Court reconciled these sections as addressing the amounts and timing of the GC’s payments; not whether the GC had to pay the Sub in the first place. (¶¶ 19-20)

Further support for the Court’s holding that there was no condition precedent to the GC’s obligation to pay the Sub lay in another Subcontract section that spoke to “amounts and times of payments.”  The presence of this language signaled that it wasn’t a question of if the GC had to pay the Sub but, instead, when it paid.

In the end, the Court applied the policy against declaring forfeitures: “[w]ithout clear language indicating the parties’ intent that the Subcontractor would assume the risk of non-payment by the owner, we will not construe the challenged language…..as a condition precedent.” (¶ 23)

Since the Subcontract was devoid of “plain and unambiguous” language sufficient to overcome the presumption against a wholesale denial of compensation, the Court found that the Subcontract contained pay-when-paid language and that there was no condition precedent to the Sub’s entitlement to payment from the GC.

Take-aways

Beal Bank provides a solid synopsis of pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid clauses.  PIPs address whether a general contractor has to pay a subcontractor at all while PWPs speak to the timing of a general’s payment to a sub.

The case also re-emphasizes that Section 21(e) of the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act provides that the presence of a PIP or PWP contract term is no defense to a mechanics lien claim (as opposed to garden-variety breach of contract claim).

Fraud, Economic Loss and Contractual Integration Clauses (And More): Illinois Fed Court Provides Primer

Plaintiff purchased the defendant’s nation-wide network of auto collision centers as part of a complicated $32.5M asset purchase agreement (APA).   A dispute arose when the plaintiff paid $9.5M to a paint supply company and creditor of the defendant in order to consummate the APA.  The plaintiff argued that the defendant breached the APA by not satisfying the paint supply debt and securing a release from the paint supplier before the APA’s closing date.  Plaintiff sued on various tort and contract theories.  Defendant countersued for reformation, rescission and breach of contract.  Both parties moved to dismiss.

In granting the bulk of the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the court in Boyd Group, Inc. v. D’Orazio, 2015 WL 3463625 (N.D.Ill. 2015) examines the interplay among several recurring commercial litigation issues including the economic loss doctrine as it applies to negligent misrepresentation claims, the impact of a contractual integration clause, and the pleading requirements for fraud in Illinois.

The court dismissed the breach of contract claim based on the APA’s integration clause.  Where parties insert an integration clause into their contract, they are manifesting their intent to guard against conflicting interpretations that could result from extrinsic evidence.  If a contract has a clear integration clause, the court cannot consider anything beyond the “four corners” of the contract and may not address evidence that relates to the parties’ understanding before or at the time the contract was signed.1

Here, the plaintiff’s breach of contract claim was based in part on e-mails authored by the defendant the same day the APA was signed.  Since the APA integration clause clearly provided that the APA was constituted the entire agreement between the parties, the court found that the defendant’s e-mails couldn’t be considered to vary the plain language of the APA.2.

The plaintiff’s negligent misrepresentation claim was defeated by the economic loss doctrine, which posits that where a written contract governs the parties’ relationship, a plaintiff’s remedy is one for breach of contract, not one sounding in tort.  An exception to this rule is where the defendant is in the business of providing information for the guidance of others in their business transactions.

Case law examples of businesses that the law deems information suppliers (for purposes of the negligent misrepresentation/economic loss rule) include stockbrokers, real estate brokers and terminate inspectors.  Conversely, businesses whose main product is not information include property developers, builders and manufacturers.

Here, the in-the-business exception (to the economic loss rule) didn’t apply since defendant operated car collision repair businesses.  He did not supply information for others’ business guidance.  The court found the defendant more akin to a manufacturer of a product and that any information he furnished was ancillary to his main collision repair business.3

The one claim that did survive the motion to dismiss was plaintiff’s fraud claim.  To plead common law fraud under Illinois law, the plaintiff must establish (1) a false statement of material fact, (2) defendant’s knowledge the statement was false, (3) defendant’s intent to induce action by the plaintiff, (4) plaintiff’s reliance on the truth of the statement, and (5) damages resulting from reliance on the statement.  Fraud requires heightened pleading specificity and it must be more than a simple breach of contract.  A fraud claim must also involve present or past facts; statements of future intent or promises aren’t actionable. 4

The plaintiff’s complaint allegations that the defendant factually represented to the plaintiff that he was in the process of securing the release of the paint supply contract as an inducement for plaintiff to enter into the APA were sufficiently factual to state a fraud claim under Federal pleading rules.

Afterwords:

  • The economic loss rule bars negligent misrepresentation claim where the defendant’s main business is providing a tangible product rather than information;
  • A clearly drafted integration clause will prevent a party to a written contract from introducing evidence (here, emails) that alters a contract’s plain meaning;
  • The failure of a condition precedent won’t equate to a breach of contract where the party being sued isn’t responsible for the condition precedent;
  • A plaintiff successfully can plead fraud where it involves a statement concerning a present or past fact, not a future one.

References:
1.  2015 WL 3463625, * 7

2. Id.

3. Id. at * 11

4. Id. at **8-9