Tag: Federal court

Ill. Wage Payment and Collection Act Doesn’t Apply to NY and Cal. Corps. With Only Random Ill. Contacts

As worker mobility increases and employees working in one state and living in another almost an afterthought, questions of court jurisdiction over intrastate workplace relationships come to the fore.  Another issue triggered by a geographically nimble workforce is whether a non-resident can invoke the protections of another state’s laws.

Illinois provides a powerful remedial scheme for employees who are stiffed by their employers in the form of the Wage Payment and Collection Act, 820 ILCS 115/1 (“Wage Act”).  See (here).  The Wage Act allows an employee to sue an employer for unpaid wages, bonuses or commissions where an employer breaches a written or oral employment contract.

The focal point of Cohan v. Medline Industries, Inc., 2016 WL 1086514 (N.D.Ill. 2016) is whether non-residents of Illinois can invoke the Wage Act against an Illinois-based employer for unpaid sales commissions.  The plaintiffs there, New York and California residents, sued their Illinois employer, for breach of various employment contract commission schedules involving the sale of medical devices.

The Northern District of Illinois held that the salespeople plaintiffs could not sue under Illinois’ Wage Act where their in-person contacts with Illinois were scarce.  The plaintiffs only entered Illinois for a few days a year as part of their employer’s mandatory sales training protocol.  All of the plaintiffs’ sales work was performed in their respective home states.

Highlights from the Court’s opinion include:

  •  The Wage Act doesn’t have “extraterritorial reach;” It’s purpose is to protect Illinois employees from being shorted compensation by their employers;
  • The Wage Act does protect non-Illinois residents who perform work in Illinois for an Illinois employer;
  • A plaintiff must perform “sufficient” work in Illinois to merit Wage Act protection;
  • There is no mechanical test to decide what is considered “sufficient” Illinois work to trigger the Wage Act protections;
  • The Wage Act only applies where there is an agreement – however informal – between an employer and employee;
  • The agreement required to trigger the Wage Act’s application doesn’t have to be formal or in writing. So long as there is a meeting of the minds, the Court will enforce the agreement;
  • The Wage Act does not cover employee claims to compensation outside of a written or oral agreement

Based on the plaintiffs’ episodic (at best) contacts with Illinois, the Court found that the Wage Act didn’t cover the plaintiffs’ unpaid commission claims.
Substantively, the Court found the Wage Act inapplicable as there was nothing in the various written employment agreements that supported the plaintiff’s damage calculations.  The plaintiffs’ relationship with the Illinois employer was set forth in multiple contracts that contained elaborate commission schedules.  Since the plaintiff’s claims sought damages beyond the scope of the written schedules, the Wage Act didn’t govern.
Take-aways:

1/ The Illinois Wage Act will apply to a non-resident of Illinois if he/she performs a sufficient quantum of work in Illinois;

2/ Scattered contacts with Illinois that are unrelated to a plaintiff’s job are not sufficient enough to qualify for a viable Wage Act lawsuit;

3/ While an agreement supporting a Wage Act claim doesn’t have to be in writing, there must be some agreement – no matter how unstructured or loose – for a plaintiff to have standing to sue for a Wage Act violation.

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. 

An Enigma Wrapped Inside A Conundrum: Suing the LLC in Federal Court – How Hard Can it Be?

maze

A limited liability company (LLC) is generally lauded as a flexible business entity that provides the limited liability of a corporation with the tax attributes of a partnership (flow-through, not double, taxation).

Flexibility is another oft-cited hallmark of the LLC form as its members can be one or more individuals, corporations, partnerships or even other LLCs. It’s common to see LLCs that have several other LLC members that are in turn comprised of (still more) LLC members.  With multiple layers of LLC members, tricky jurisdictional issues routinely abound.

When Federal subject matter jurisdiction is at stake, the question of whether a plaintiff can sue an LLC in Federal court quickly morphs from an academic, “fun” one, to an important strategic one.

Here are some useful bullet-points:

– A Federal district court has original subject matter jurisdiction over matters involving citizens of different states and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. 28 U.S.C. s. 1332(a)(1).

– There must be “complete diversity” between the parties: each plaintiff must be a citizen of a different state than each defendant.  The easily parroted rule becomes hard to apply the more parties are involved in a given lawsuit; especially where business entities are implicated in a case.

– A corporation is considered a citizen of the state where it has its principal place of business and where it is incorporated.  So, if Corporation X was incorporated in Texas but has its main office in Ohio, Corporation X would be considered a citizen of both Ohio and Texas.  28 U.S.C. s. 1332(c)(1).

– An LLC is considered a citizen of the state of its members;

– An LLC can have as members, partnerships, corporations and other entities;

– When an LLC has multiple members that have varied citizenships, a court must examine each member’s state of citizenship, as well as each member’s members’ citizenship, when determining whether it has jurisdiction over an LLC defendant.

A Case Illustration

Cumulus Radio Corp. v. Olson, 2015 WL 1110592, a case I’ve twice featured for its discussion of Federal TRO guidelines, illustrates the serpentine analytical framework involved with an LLC that’s made up of one or more LLC members.

There, the plaintiff broadcasting company was a Nevada corporation with its principal place of business in Georgia.  The defendant LLC was a Delaware-registered LLC based in Oregon.  The defendant LLC had but one member that happened to be another LLC.  That LLC (the sole member of the defendant LLC) had a single member – an individual who lived in Georgia.

Because the Delaware LLC’s sole member’s sole member was a Georgia resident, there was incomplete diversity between the plaintiff and defendant.  Normally, this would give the defendant a basis to move to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  The plaintiff would then have to sue the LLC defendant in state court in Delaware (where it was formed) Oregon (where it is based) or Georgia (where its member’s member lived).

While the court ultimately found that the Georgia resident wasn’t truly a member based on the LLC’s Operating Agreement, Cumulus provides a good illustration of the multi-layered jurisdictional analysis required with an LLC defendant that has several individual or business entity constituents.

Sources:

– Hicklin Engineering LC v. Bartell, 439 F.3d 346 (7th Cir. 2006);

– 28 U.S.C. s. 1332(a), (c).

– http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/09/12/litigation-carefully-examine-the-layers-of-llc-cit (this is a good article from 2013 that lays out the applicable rules)