Tag: fiduciary duty

Illinois Joint Ventures – Features and Effects

Primo v. Pierini, 2012 IL App (1st) 103553-U discusses the key elements of a joint venture and how it differs from other common business arrangements.

The plaintiff contractor sued a construction manager to recover about $300k in building improvements it made in building a Chicago restaurant.  The construction manager was hired by the restaurant owner and was actively involved in funding the construction.

The construction manager in turn filed a third party suit against the restaurant owner for contribution.  It (the construction manager) claimed that it merely lent money to the restaurant owner and that there was no formal business relationship between them.

After a bench trial, the court found a joint venture existed between the construction manager and the restaurant owner based on their oral agreement to share restaurant profits among other reasons.

The court entered judgment for the plaintiff for nearly $300k and awarded defendant about $150K (one-half of the judgment) in its third-party claim  against the restaurant operator.  The court later reduced the judgment to about $140k after excising over $150k in extras and prejudgment interest from the judgment amount.  Each side appealed.

Result: Reduced judgment (minus extras and interest) affirmed.

Reasons:

The appeals court agreed with the trial court that there was a joint venture between the construction manager and restaurant owner.

– A joint venture is an association of two or more persons or entities to carry out a single, specific enterprise;

-Whether a joint venture exists is a factual inquiry and no formulaic rules ultimately determine whether a joint venture exists;

– Where the parties’ conduct evinces an intent to share profits from a common enterprise, the court will find a joint venture exists;

– The key joint venture elements are: (1) an express or implied agreement to carry on an enterprise; (2) a manifestation of intent by the parties to be associated as joint venturers; (3) joint interest as shown by the contribution of property, money or knowledge by each joint venturer; (4) joint control or ownership over the enterprise; and (5) the joint sharing of profits and losses;

– Like a partnership, each joint venture participant is an agent of the other one and is liable to third parties for another participant’s acts taken in the regular course of the venture’s business;

– Unlike an LLC or corporation, a joint venture is not a separate legal entity (i.e. like a corporation, LLC or limited partnership is): instead, a joint venture is a contractual relationship formed between the constituent venturers;

– Joint ventures can be made up of individuals, corporations, or a combination of the two.

(¶ 56-58).

The court rejected the defendant construction manager’s claim that it was only a lender (and not a partner or joint venturer) to the restaurant business.  The construction manager relied on section 202 of the Illinois Partnership Act (805 ILCS 206/202(a), (c)), which provides that receiving debt repayments from a business venture signals a lender-borrower relationship instead of a profit sharing/partnership one. (¶ 59-60)

Here, the court credited trial testimony that the parties planned to split profits well after the restaurant owner repaid the defendant’s loan.  In addition, the construction manager’s principal’s self-serving written statement that “I am not a partner” wasn’t sufficient to cast doubt on the trial testimony that defendants and the restaurant owner agreed to share profits indefinitely. (¶ 62)

In sum, the defendants’ active and direct involvement in funding the restaurant’s construction coupled with the agreement with the owner/operator to share in the profits manifested the intent to form a joint venture.

Afterwords

– A hallmark of a joint venture is the sharing of profits and losses in a common, one-time enterprise;

– Where one party lends money to another, this generally denotes a lender-borrower arrangement; not a joint venture or partnership one;

– Each enterprise participant’s active involvement in day-to-day functioning of a business, coupled with profit and loss sharing, is strong evidence of joint venture relationship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Fiduciary Duty Owed Lender By Closing Agent in Botched Real Estate Deal

In Edelman v. Belco Title & Escrow, LLC (http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca7/13-2363/13-2363-2014-04-25.html) the plaintiffs sued an escrow agent after investing $3M in a failed real estate deal.

The plaintiffs invested the monies directly with the developers of a mixed-use project.  The plaintiff never met with nor spoke to the defendant escrow agent and there was no document that formalized the relationship between plaintiffs and defendant other than some boilerplate closing forms.

Plaintiffs sued when they lost their entire investment after a prior mortgage lender foreclosed on the subject development, wiping out plaintiffs’ entire investment.

Affirming summary judgment for the escrow agent, the court first addressed a procedural pleading issue.  FRCP 8(b)(6) provides that a complaint allegation is admitted if that allegation isn’t denied.  The purpose of a responsive pleading is to put everyone on notice of what a defendant admits and what it intends to contest.

Here, since defendant answered plaintiff’s earlier versions of the complaint which contained identical allegations to the current version, plaintiffs were on notice of what allegations were admitted and which ones were not.

On the merits, the Court found that the defendant escrow agent didn’t owe a fiduciary duty beyond its specific instructions from the plaintiffs.

In Illinois, a principal and agent stand in a fiduciary relationship as a matter of law.  The agent occupies a position of trust towards the principal and he (the agent) must act in the utmost good faith and apprise his principal of all key facts within the agent’s knowledge that could affect the principal’s legal relationships.

Illinois law is clear that an escrowee, like a trustee, owes a fiduciary duty to act only according to the specific escrow instructions.  No Illinois court has held that an escrowee in defendant’s position is tasked with an obligation to seek additional instructions from parties to a real estate deal.

Here, the plaintiffs and defendant never met nor communicated.  The defendant wasn’t party to the underlying loan agreement that documented plaintiffs’ $3M investment.  The loan agreement parties were the plaintiffs and the developers (who weren’t named as defendants).

Also, the disbursement agreement wasn’t signed and offered no details of the plaintiff-defendant relationship.  The Court also pointed out that the plaintiffs never deposited any funds with the defendant: plaintiffs paid the $3M directly to the developers.

The Seventh Circuit bolstered its no fiduciary duty finding with a policy argument.  It held that escrow transactions would be “destabilized” if an escrow agent like defendant could be legally liable in circumstances like here, where it didn’t know what responsibilities it owed and to whom.

Take-aways:

– an escrowee or closing agent only owe duties spelled out in instructions given him by his lender-principal;

– it will be difficult for a real estate lender to prove a fiduciary duty claim where there is no physical or paper connection between the lender and escrow agent and where the lender doesn’t fund a loan through the escrow agent.

 

Lawyer’s Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Constructive Trust Claim Against Ex Law Partner Barred By 5-Year Statute of Limitations

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Jimmy Connors is one of my all-time favorite tennis players and professional athletes.  Not just because he was such a fiery competitor who seemed to literally spill his blood and guts every time he took the court.  But because of his racket.

In an era dominated by space-age racket technologies like Kevlar, ceramics and various graphite-fiberglass amalgams, Connors stuck with his trusty Wilson T2000 – a primitive piece of steel with a wrap-around string aesthetic and microscopic sweet spot.  

There was just something about seeing the consummate throwback Connors, and his anachronistic Tool of his Trade,  continually vanquish a parade of younger adversaries with their ultra-modern tennis accoutrements that resonated with the purist in me.

That’s why Brennan v Constance, 2014 IL App (5th) 110555-U (2014), a lawsuit involving two former law partners fighting over legal fees owed by the tennis legend, naturally piqued my interest.

Facts:

The plaintiff and defendant was ere law partners in a three-person firm (the Firm).  Connors was a long-time Firm client.  

When the Firm disbanded, a major sticking point was fees owed the Firm by Connors for previous services.  Defendant believed the fees were his (since Connors was originally his client) while the other Firm members viewed the Connors fees owed to the Firm.

After more than a decade of litigation, Connors paid nearly $11 million to the Firm.  Defendant received nearly $7 million, while a former Firm partner got about $4M.

Plaintiff sued to impose a constructive trust over a portion of the $7 million in fees recovered by defendant because plaintiff believed defendant misled him concerning the amounts owed from the tennis great.

After a three-week bench trial, the Court entered judgment in plaintiff’s favor and imposed a constructive trust on the fees and awarded plaintiff more than $1.64 million – an amount equal to 25% of the Connors fees paid to defendanT.

Held: trial court reversed.  Plaintiff’s suit is time-barred.

Rules/Reasoning:

Plaintiff’s suit was barred by the five-year statute of limitations governing breach of fiduciary duty claims. 

Code Section 13-205’s five-year limitations period governs constructive trust and fiduciary duty claims.  ¶ 60, 735 ILCS 5/13-205.  A statute of limitations starts running when the cause of action accrues (when facts exist which authorize bringing the action).  

The “discovery rule” tolls (stops) the running of a limitations period until an injured plaintiff knows or should know he has been injured. 

Fraudulent concealment of a claim also tolls the limitations period.  ¶ 61.  In “passive” concealment cases, the plaintiff must show that defendant concealed a material fact that he was under a duty to disclose.  ¶ 63.   However, a plaintiff who knows he has been injured has a duty to investigate further and the limitations period will run when the plaintiff is put on “inquiry notice.”  A plaintiff doesn’t have to know the full extent of his injuries before the statutory clocks start ticking.

In reversing the plaintiff’s judgment, the 5th District found the plaintiff was on inquiry notice as early as 2004 (when he admittedly first learned of an aborted stock transfer that would have netted the Firm millions) but didn’t sue until 2010.  Since plaintiff missed the five-year limitations period, his suit was too late.

The Court also rejected plaintiff’s fiduciary duty argument: that since defendant owed plaintiff a fiduciary duty as a former law partner, it relaxed the limitations period.  The Court disagreed.  It held that while a fiduciary relationship may excuse an initial failure to investigate, it won’t lengthen the time to sue where a plaintiff knows of possible wrongdoing and fails to act on it.  ¶¶ 70-71.

Afterwords: This case illustrates the harsh results for  litigants who sits on their rights.  While a fiduciary relationship can bolster a fraudulent concealment argument and toll a limitations period, if facts exist that should put a reasonable person on inquiry notice of a wrongful act, the limitations period will run from the date of that notice.