Tag: pay-when-paid

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).

The Contractual ‘Pay-If-Paid’ Clause – How Broad Is Its Scope?

A pay-if-paid (PIP) clause in a construction contract says “I, the general contractor, will only have to pay you, the subcontractor, if the owner – the guy I contract with – pays me.”  Substitute “when” for “if” in the above example and you have a pay-when-paid clause.  Both of these clauses are standard in multi-layered construction projects (ones that involve multiple contractors and contracts). 

Neither term can be used to defend a mechanics’ lien foreclosure suit, though.  Section 21(e) of the Illinois Mechanics’ Lien Act (770 ILCS 60/21(e)) prevents a general contractor from using pay-if-paid or pay-when-paid provisions as a defense to a subcontractor’s mechanics’ lien claim.  But the terms are valid defenses to regular breach of contract claims. 

BMD Contractors, Inc. v. Fidelity and Deposit Company of Maryland, 679 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2012), examines whether a third party (i.e., a guarantor or surety) can use a PIP clause in defense of a subcontractor’s payment bond claim.  Under Indiana law, the answer is yes.

Facts:  When an Indiana manufacturer declared bankruptcy, it caused a chain reaction of defaults starting with the prime contract between the owner and the general contractor and cascading down to lower tier subs.

When the entity that hired plaintiff failed to pay, plaintiff sued the subcontractor’s bonding company under a payment bond.  The bonding company moved for summary judgment because of a PIP clause in the sub-subcontract. 

The bonding company said that since the subcontractor – the bonding company’s principal – wasn’t paid by the general contractor, the subcontractor didn’t have to pay the plaintiff.  The District Court agreed and granted summary judgment.  The plaintiff appealed.

Held: District Court affirmed.

Why?:

The Court defined a PIP clause as one that provides a subcontractor will be paid only if the contractor is paid by the owner; with each contractor bearing the risk of loss.  By contrast, a pay-when-paid (PWP) clause denotes a timing issue: the general contractor is obligated to pay the subcontractor – but only when or within a fixed time after the contractor is paid by the owner.  (p. 648). 

The Court, looking to other jurisdictions, held that the term “condition precedent” in a construction contract usually signals a PIP provision.  And viewing the unambiguous language of the operative contracts, the plaintiff’s right to  payment was only triggered if the subcontractor was paid by the general contractor.  (pp. 649-650)

Public Policy and Surety (Guarantor) Liability

The Court found that PIP terms don’t violate Indiana public policy reflected by two statutes that (1) prohibit contractual waivers of payment bond claims and (2) prevent conditioning a contractor’s right to record a lien on first receiving payment from a third person.  Indiana Code 32-28-3-16(b), 18(c). 

The Seventh Circuit held that these statutes didn’t apply to whether a contractual PIP term was a defense to a breach of contract suit.  Based on Indiana’s strong policy favoring freedom of contract, and because no statute outlaws PIP provisions as a breach of contract defense, the PIP term didn’t violate public policy. BMD at 652.

Summary judgment for the bonding company was also proper based on the general rule that a surety’s (the person guaranteeing another’s debt) obligations mirror those of its principal.  A surety can have no greater liability than its principal (the person whose debts are being guaranteed). 

In Indiana, payment bonds and the contracts they secure are construed together.  BMD at 654.  And since the subcontractor didn’t have to pay the plaintiff unless the subcontractor was paid by the general contractor, the bonding company’s obligations weren’t triggered and it didn’t have to pay the plaintiff.

Conclusions

(1) if a contract contains “condition precedent” (to payment) or similar language, this will signal a pay-if-paid clause and it will present a valid defense to a breach of contract suit;

2) lower-tier subcontractors should actively monitor the financial health of  the project so they aren’t caught off-guard by an owner’s or higher-tier contractor’s default.