Tag: Due Process

Faulty Service on LLC Defendant Dooms Administrative Agency’s Unpaid Wages Claim Versus Security Company

The Illinois Department of Labor’s (DOL) decision to send a notice of hearing to a limited liability company and its sole member to the member’s personal post office (p.o.) box (and not to the LLC’s registered agent) came back to haunt the agency in People of the State of Illinois v. Wilson, 2018 IL App (1st) 171614-U.

Reversing summary judgment for the DOL in its lawsuit to enforce an unpaid wages default judgment, the First District austerely applies the Illinois LLC Act’s (805 ILCS 180/1-1 et seq.) service of process requirements and voided the judgment for improper service.

Key Chronology:

February 2013: the DOL filed a complaint for violation of the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (the Wage Act) against the LLC security firm and its member (the “LLC Member”);

January 2015: the DOL sends a notice of hearing by regular mail to both defendants to the LLC Member’s personal p.o. box;

March 2015: Defendants fail to appear at the hearing (the “2015 Hearing”) and DOC defaults the defendants;

June 2015: Defendants fail to pay the default amount and DOL enters judgment that tacks on additional fees and penalties;

February 2016: DOL files suit in Illinois Chancery Court to enforce the June 2015 administrative judgment;

March 2016, May 2016: Defendants respectively appear through counsel and move to dismiss the case for improper service of the 2015 Hearing notice;

June – July 2016: DOL concedes that service was deficient on the LLC defendant (the security company) and voluntarily dismisses the LLC as party defendant;

May 2017: DOL’s motion for summary judgment granted;

June 2017: LLC Member appeals.

The Analysis

The main issue on appeal was whether the DOL gave proper notice of the 2015 Hearing. It did not.

Under the law, lack of jurisdiction may be raised at any time; even past the 35-day window to challenge an agency’s decision under the Illinois Administrative Review Law, 735 ILCS 5/3-103.

Section 50 of the LLC Act provides that an LLC must be served (1) via its registered agent or (2) the Secretary of State under limited circumstances.

Secretary of State service on an LLC is proper where (1) the LLC fails to appoint or maintain a registered agent in Illinois; (2) the LLC’s registered agent cannot be found with reasonable diligence at either the LLC’s registered office or its principal place of business; OR (3) when the LLC has been dissolved, the conditions of (1) and (2) above exist, and suit is brought within 5 years after issuance of a certificate of dissolution or filing of a judgment of dissolution. 805 ILCS 180/1-50(a), (b)(1-3).

Here, the DOL mailed notice of the 2015 Hearing to the wrong party: it only notified the LLC Member. It did not serve the notice on the LLC’s registered agent or through the Secretary of State. As a result, the LLC was not properly served in the underlying wage proceeding.

The DOL argued that since the LLC Member was also sued as an individual “employer” under Sections 2 and 13 of the Act, service of the 2015 Hearing on the LLC Member was valid.

The Court disagreed. Under Sections 2 and 13 of the Act, an employer can be liable for its own violations and acts committed by its agents and corporate officers or agents can be liable where they “knowingly permit” an employer to violate the Act.

Corporate officers who have “operational control” of a business are deemed employers under the Act. However, an individual’s status as a lone member of an entity – like the LLC Member – is not enough to subject the member to personal liability.

Instead, there must be evidence the member permitted the corporate employer to violate the Act by not paying the compensation due the employee. Otherwise, the Court held, every company decision-maker would be liable for a company’s failure to pay an employee’s wages. [⁋⁋ 49-50]

And since the DOL hearing officer never made any specific findings that the LLC Member knowingly permitted the security company to violate the Act, there wasn’t enough evidence to sustain the trial court’s summary judgment for the DOL. [⁋ 51]

Afterwords:

Wilson starkly illustrates that the LLC Act’s service of process strictures have teeth. If a litigant fails to serve an LLC’s registered agent or the Secretary of State, any judgment stemming from the invalid service is a nullity.

In hindsight, the DOL probably should have produced evidence at the 2015 Hearing that the LLC Member (a) had operational control over the security firm; and (b) personally participated in the firm’s decision not to pay the underlying claimant’s wages. Had it done so, it may have been able to salvage its case and show that p.o. box service on the LLC Member was sufficient to subject her to the DOL’s jurisdiction.

Getting Jurisdiction Over A Foreign Corporation – IL Case Note

Q: Can Spanish companies be subject to Illinois jurisdiction where the companies’ U.S.-based subsidiaries signed contracts that contained an Illinois forum selection clause. 

A: Yes

 In , LLC v. Acciona, 2014 IL App (1st) 123403, the plaintiff entered into a multi-million dollar contract with two U.S. subsidiaries of the Spanish corporate defendants to develop power plants.

The US entities were owned by one or more companies owned by the defendants.

The operative contract documents contained forum selection clauses fixing Illinois as the site for litigation.  When the deal fell through, plaintiff sued the foreign parent companies for damages.

The defendants moved to dismiss on the basis that they lacked sufficient contacts with Illinois and didn’t sign the contract.  The trial court denied the motion and the defendants appealed.

Held: Affirmed.  The foreign defendants are “closely related” enough to the underlying contracts and parties to be subject to Illinois jurisdiction. 

Reasons:  

  • To sue a nonresident defendant in IL the plaintiff has the burden of showing a basis for personal jurisdiction;
  • Illinois courts can assert general or specific jurisdiction;
  • General jurisdiction over a nonresident requires a showing of continuous and systematic business contacts such that it can be sued for matters unrelated to its contacts with Illinois;
  • Specific jurisdiction requires a showing of minimum contacts –that a defendant purposefully directed its activities at Illinois and the litigation arises from those activities;
  • A corporation is subject to general jurisdiction where it is organized under Illinois law or is doing business in Illinois;
  • The Illinois long-arm statute (735 ILCS 5/2-209) permits jurisdiction over a foreign defendant on any basis permitted by the Illinois Constitution and U.S. Constitution;
  • If an out-of-state defendant’s contacts with Illinois are sufficient to satisfy state and federal due process concerns, the Illinois long-arm statute is satisfied;
  • Federal due process requires that a foreign defendant have certain minimum contacts with a forum such that maintenance of the suit doesn’t offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.

 ¶¶ 34-37.

The trial court found jurisdiction on the basis that the foreign defendants were “closely related” to the dispute such that it was foreseeable they would be bound by the forum selection clause. 

In Illinois, forum selection clauses are construed broadly to include related claims ancillary to the contract.  The clauses are generally valid and enforceable and a non-party can be bound by them if it is closely connected to the dispute.  (¶¶ 36-37). 

Where there is a sufficiently close relationship between the non-party, the dispute and the contracting parties, the non-party is considered to impliedly consent to the forum selection clause and a foreign state’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over it.  (¶¶ 43-44).

Applying these principles, the Court found the defendants subject to specific jurisdiction in Illinois.  The Court pointed to the broad forum selection text and the fact that the defendants controlled all business aspects of their subsidiaries; including funding, hiring and firing decisions.

The Court also noted the U.S. subsidiaries had few employees, scant business operations and in one case, was purely a stockholding vehicle for the defendants’ multi-national business ventures.  (¶¶ 47-48).

Afterwords:

– Forum selection clauses are construed and enforced to the letter in Illinois- especially in contracts involving sophisticated commercial parties with equal bargaining power;

– a parent company that sufficiently controls or is intermixed with its subsidiary’s business affairs can be bound by a forum selection clause signed by the subsidiary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Apparent Agency, Ratification and Long-Arm Jurisdiction: IL Law

The First District examines a slew of important substantive and procedural litigation issues in Graver v. Pinecrest Volunteer Fire Dept., 2014 IL App (1st) 123006, a commercial lease dispute pitting an Illinois corporation against a Tennessee corporation and an agent of that corporation.

The parties signed a fire truck lease that called for seven years’ worth of monthly payments.

The lease was signed by defendant’s former treasurer who said he had authority to sign on defendant’s behalf.  Plaintiff sued after the defendant defaulted and won an Illinois default judgment against both the corporate and individual defendants of over $92,000.

About fifteen months later, the corporate defendant moved to vacate the judgment under Code Section 2-1401 (for judgments more than 30 days but less than 2 years old).  It claimed the Illinois court lacked personal jurisdiction over it.   The trial court denied the motion and found that defendant  was subject to Illinois long-arm jurisdiction.

The First District reversed.

Holding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the Tennessee defendant, the court catalogued the key Illinois jurisdictional rules for foreign defendants:

– the plaintiff has the burden of establishing jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant;

– Code Section 2-209(c) (Illinois’ long-arm statute) provides that an Illinois court can exercise jurisdiction over a foreign defendant if permitted by the Illinois Constitution and the U.S. Constitution;

– Federal due process requires a foreign defendant to have “minimum contacts” with the forum state and to have “purposely availed” itself of the privileges of conducting activities in the forum state;

– Federal due process involves three factors: (1) whether the defendant had minimum contacts such that it had “fair warning” it may be haled into the forum state’s court; (2) the claim against the foreign defendant arose from or is related to the defendant’s contacts with the forum state; and (3) whether it’s reasonable to require the foreign defendant to litigate in another state;

– For Illinois to have general jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant, the defendant must have “continuous and systematic” business contacts with the forum state;

– Where specific jurisdiction applies, the foreign defendant can only be sued if the action arises from or is related to the defendant’s conduct in the forum state;

– In a breach of contract suit against an out-of-state defendant, the critical jurisdictional factors are (1) who initiated the transaction; (2) where the contract was formed; and (3) where the contract was performed;

– A choice-of-law contractual provision is relevant, but is not by itself a sufficient basis to subject a defendant to jurisdiction in another state.

(¶¶ 13-17).

Applying these rules, the First District found that Illinois lacked jurisdiction over the Tenn. defendant.  First, there was no general jurisdiction since the corporation’s contacts with Illinois were sparse: they weren’t continuous and systematic.  Also, the agent who signed the lease lacked authority to bind the defendant.  It offered an uncontested affidavit that established the agent was never authorized to sign contracts for the defendant.  The court also found that since defendant didn’t know about the lease until after the default judgment was entered, there was no ratification of the agent’s signing the lease.  ¶¶ 19-20.

The Court reversed the trial court’s jurisdiction ruling and voided the judgment against the defendant.

Take-aways: For an out-of-state corporation to be subject to Illinois specific jurisdiction, its contacts with Illinois must form the basis for the lawsuit.  In addition, where a plaintiff is trying to impute an agent’s actions to a corporate principal, the plaintiff must show that the principal said or did something to create in the plaintiff the reasonable belief that the agent could bind the principal.  My question is why didn’t the plaintiff file a counter-affidavit which detailed the actions of the agent and principal which led the plaintiff to assume the agent had authority to bind the principal? It’s not clear whether it would have made a difference; but a counter-affidavit would have at least given the plaintiff a fighting chance.