Tag: fraud

Commercial Borrowers’ Civil RICO Suit For Inflated Appraisals and Loans Bounced by IL Fed Court

 

Delaware Motel Associates v. Capital Crossing Servicing Company, LLC, 2017 WL 4224618 examines the pleading requisites for civil RICO claims and the razor-thin difference between unjust enrichment and quantum meruit claims in a hotel development loan dispute.

The plaintiff real estate investors sued a lender and its appraisal firm for civil RICO violations.  The plaintiffs alleged the appraiser and lender plotted to issue fraudulent loans based on inflated property values over a multi-year span.  The Northern District of Illinois granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss the claims under Rule 12(b)(6).

Reasons:

To state a cognizable RICO claim, a plaintiff must plead (1) conduct (2) of an enterprise (3) through a pattern (4) of racketeering activity. To satisfy the enterprise element – item (2) – the plaintiff has to allege “a group of persons acting together for a common purpose or course of conduct.” Here, the plaintiffs’ complaint was devoid of specific allegations that defendants worked together to advance a common objective and lacked any facts showing defendants’ common purpose.

The plaintiffs also failed to adequately allege defendants engaged in racketeering activity. Quintessential RICO conduct includes mail and wire fraud, bank fraud, extortion and money laundering. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). Because of their inherently fraudulent make-up, these predicate acts must be pled with acute specificity under Rule 9(b).

To satisfy Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard, the civil RICO plaintiff must allege the time, place, and content of the alleged fraud.  While Federal pleading rules sometimes allow fraud to be pled “on information and belief,” the plaintiff still must supply “some firsthand information to provide grounds to corroborate their suspicions.”  The Court found the plaintiff’s mail, wire and bank fraud allegations sparse since they didn’t identify a specific fraudulent loan or inflated land appraisal.

The Court also dispatched with the plaintiffs’ intentional interference with prospective economic advantage claim.  This requires a plaintiff to allege: (1) he had a reasonable expectancy of a valid business relationship; (2) the defendant knew about the expectancy; (3) the defendant intentionally interfered with the expectancy and prevented it from ripening into a valid business relationship; and (4) the intentional interference injured the plaintiff.

In their Complaint, plaintiffs failed to allege any defendant who knew of plaintiff’s reasonable expectancy of a valid business relationship who purposefully tampered with the expectancy.

Rejecting plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment and quantum meruit claims, the court again focused on plaintiffs’ pleading deficits.  The plaintiffs failed to allege the critical unjust enrichment element that plaintiff conferred a benefit on defendants which they unfairly kept.  The plaintiffs similarly failed to plead quantum meruit as the Complaint was missing allegations that plaintiff performed a service that benefitted defendants.

Useful Bullet-Points

– This case provides a useful pleadings primer for civil RICO cases and emphasizes the paramount importance of factual specificity in fraud-based claims.  To allege a RICO enterprise, the plaintiff must allege concerted actions by a group of people to pursue a common goal.

– A viable racketeering claim sounding in mail or wire fraud requires specific factual allegations.  Otherwise, the RICO claim can be subject to Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal.

 

Discovery Rule Can’t Save Trustee’s Fraud Suit – No ‘Continuing’ Violation Where Insurance Rep Misstates Premium Amount – IL Court

Gensberg v. Guardian, 2017 IL App (1st) 153443-U, examines the discovery rule in the context of common law and consumer fraud as well as when the “continuing wrong” doctrine can extend a statute of limitations.

Plaintiffs bought life insurance from agent in 1991 based in part on the agent’s representation that premiums would “vanish” in 2003 (for a description of vanishing premiums scenario, see here).  When the premium bills didn’t stop in 2003, plaintiff complained and the agent informed it that premiums would cease in 2006.

Plaintiff complained again in 2006 when it continued receiving premium bills.  This time, the agent informed plaintiff the premium end date would be 2013. It was also in this 2006 conversation that the agent, for the first time, informed plaintiff that whether premiums would vanish is dependent on the policy dividend interest rate remaining constant.

When the premiums still hadn’t stopped by 2013, plaintiff had seen (or heard enough) and sued the next year.  In its common law and consumer fraud counts, plaintiff alleged it was defrauded by the insurance agent and lured into paying premiums for multiple years as a result of the agent’s misstatements.

The Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ suit on the grounds that plaintiff’s fraud claims were time barred under the five-year and three-year statutes of limitation for common law and statutory fraud.

Held: Dismissal Affirmed.

Rules/reasons:

The statute of limitations for common law fraud and consumer fraud is five years and three years, respectively. 735 ILCS 5/13-205, 805 ILCS 505/10a(e). Here, plaintiff sued in 2014.  So normally, its fraud claims had to have accrued in 2009 (common law fraud) and 2011 (consumer fraud) at the earliest for the claims to be timely.  But the plaintiff claimed it didn’t learn it was injured until 2013 under the discovery rule.

The discovery rule, which can forestall the start of the limitations period, posits that the statute doesn’t begin to run until a party knows or reasonably should know (1) of an injury and that (2) the injury was wrongfully caused. ‘Wrongfully caused’ under the discovery rule means there is enough facts for a reasonable person would be put on inquiry notice that he/she may have a cause of action. The party relying on the discovery rule to file suit after a statute of limitations runs has the burden of proving the date of discovery. (¶ 23)

The plaintiff alleged that it wasn’t until 2013 that it first learned that defendant misrepresented the vanishing date for the insurance premiums.
The Court rejected this argument based on the allegations of the plaintiff’s complaint. It held that the plaintiff knew or should have known it was injured no later than 2006 when the agent failed to adhere to his second promised deadline (the first was in 2003 – the original premium end date) for premiums to cease.

Plaintiff stated it complained to the insurance agent in 2003 and again in 2006 that it shouldn’t be continuing to get billed.  The court found that the agent’s failure to comply with multiple promised deadlines for premiums to stop should have put plaintiff on notice that he was injured in 2003 at the earliest and 2006 at the latest. Since plaintiff didn’t sue until 2014 – eight years later – both fraud claims were filed too late.

Grasping at a proverbial straw, the plaintiff argued its suit was saved by the “continuing violation” rule.  This rule can revive a time-barred claim where a tort involves repeated harmful behavior.  In such a case, the statute of limitations doesn’t run until (1) the date of the last injury or (2) when the harmful acts stop. But, where there is a single overt act which happens to spawn repetitive damages, the limitations period is measured from the date of the overt act. (¶ 26).

The court in this case found there was but a single harmful event – the agent’s failure to disclose, until 2006, that whether premiums would ultimately vanish was contingent on dividend interest rates remaining static. As a result, plaintiff knew or should have known it was harmed in 2006 and could not take advantage of the continuing violation rule to lengthen its time to sue.

Take-aways:

1/ Fraud claims are subject to a five-year (common law fraud) and three-year (consumer fraud) limitations period;

2/ The discovery rule can extend the time to sue but will not apply where a reasonable person is put on inquiry notice that he may have suffered an actionable wrong;

3/  “Continuing wrong” doctrine doesn’t govern where there is a single harmful event that has ongoing ramifications. The plaintiff’s time to sue will be measured from the date of the tortious occurrence and not from when damages happen to end.

As-Is Language In Sales Literature Defeats Fraud Claim Involving ’67 Corvette (Updated April 2017)

In late March 2017, a Federal court in Illinois granted summary judgment for a luxury car auctioneer in a disgruntled buyer’s lawsuit premised on a claimed fake Corvette.

The Corvette aficionado plaintiff in Pardo v. Mecum Auction, Inc., 2017 WL 1217198 alleged the auction company misrepresented that a cobbled-together 1964 Corvette was a new 1967 Corvette – the vehicle plaintiff thought he was buying.  Plaintiff’s suit sounded in common law fraud and breach of contract.  The Court previously dismissed the fraud suit and later granted summary judgment for the defendant on the plaintiff’s breach of contract claim.

The Court dismissed the fraud suit based on “non-reliance” and “as-is” language in the contract.  Since reliance is a required fraud element, the non-reliance clause preemptively gutted the plaintiff’s fraud count.

Denying the plaintiff’s motion to reconsider, the Court noted that an Illinois fraud claimant cannot allege he relied on a false statement when the same writing provides he’s buying something in as-is condition.  The non-reliance/as-is disclaimer also neutralizes a fraud claim based on oral statements and defeats breach of express and implied warranty claims aimed at misstatements concerning a product.

By attaching the contract which contained the non-reliance language, the plaintiff couldn’t prove his reliance as a matter of law.

The Court found for the defendant on plaintiff’s breach of contract claim.  The plaintiff’s operative Second Amended Complaint alleged the auction company breached a title processing section of the contract: that it failed to timely deliver title to the vehicle to the plaintiff.

The Court sided with the auction company based on basic contract interpretation rules.  All the contract required was that the defendant “process” the title within 14 business days of the sale.  It didn’t saddle the defendant with an obligation to deliver the title to a specific person.  Since the evidence in the record revealed that the defendant did process and transfer the title to a third party within the 14-day time frame, plaintiff could not prove that defendant breached the sales contract.

The plaintiff also couldn’t prove damages – another indispensable breach of contract element.  That is, even if the auction company failed to process the title, the plaintiff didn’t show that it suffered any damages.  The crux of the plaintiff’s lawsuit was that it was sold a car that differed from what was advertised.  Whether the defendant complied with the 14-day title processing requirement had nothing to do with plaintiff’s alleged damages.

Since the plaintiff could not offer evidence to support its breach and damages components of its breach of contract action, the Court granted summary judgment for the defendant.

Lastly, the Court rejected plaintiff’s rescission remedy argument – that the contract should be rescinded for defendant’s fraud and failure to perform.

The Court’s ruling that the defendant performed in accordance with the title processing language defeated plaintiff’s nonperformance argument.  In addition, the Court prior dismissal of the plaintiff’s fraud claim based on the contractual non-reliance language knocked out the rescission-based-on-fraud argument.

 

Afterwords:

Non-reliance or “as is” contract text will make it hard if not impossible to allege fraud in connection with the sale of personal property;

A breach of contract carries the burden of proof on both breach and damages elements.  The failure to prove either one is fatal to a breach of contract claim.

In hindsight, the plaintiff should have premised its breach of contract claim on the defendant’s failure to deliver a car different from what was promoted. This arguably would have given the plaintiff a “hook” to keep its breach of contract suit alive and survive summary judgment.