Tag: procuring cause

The ‘Procuring Cause’ Rule – Ill. Appeals Court Weighs In

The First District recently applied the ‘procuring cause’ doctrine to award the plaintiff real estate broker a money judgment based on a reasonable brokerage commission in Jameson Real Estate, LLC v. Ahmed, 2018 IL App (1st) 171534.

The broker provided the defendant with specifics concerning an “off market” car wash business and the land it sat on. The plaintiff later gave defendant a written brokerage contract for the sale of the car wash business and property that provided for a 5% sales commission.  The defendant never signed the contract.

After many months of negotiations, defendant orally informed plaintiff he no longer wished to buy the property and stopped communicating with plaintiff.

When plaintiff later learned that defendant bought the property behind plaintiff’s back, plaintiff sued to recover his 5% commission. The trial court directed a verdict for defendant on plaintiff’s express contract claims but entered judgment for plaintiff on his quantum meruit complaint count.  The money judgment was for an amount that was congruent with what a typical buyer’s broker – splitting a commission with a selling broker – would earn in a comparable commercial sale.

Quantum meruit, which means “as much as he deserves” provides a broker plaintiff with a cause of action to recover the reasonable value of services rendered but where no express contract exists between the parties.

A quantum meruit plaintiff must plead and prove (1) it performed a service to the benefit of a defendant, (2) that it did not perform the service gratuitously, (3) the defendant accepted the plaintiff’s service, and (4) no written contract exists to prescribe payment for the service.

The fine-line distinction between quantum meruit and unjust enrichment is that in the former, the measure of recovery is the reasonable value of work and material furnished, while in the unjust enrichment setting, the focus is on the benefit received and retained as a result of the improvement provided.  [¶ 61]

In the real estate setting, a quantum meruit commission recovery can be based on either a percentage of the sales price or the amount a buyer saved by excising a broker’s fee from a given transaction. [¶ 64]

Where a real estate broker brings parties together who ultimately consummate a real estate sale, the broker is treated as the procuring cause of the completed deal. In such a case, the broker is entitled to a reasonable commission shown by the evidence. A broker can be deemed a procuring cause where he demonstrates he was involved in negotiations and in disseminating property information which leads to a completed sale. [¶ 69]

The appeals court found the trial court’s quantum meruit award of $50,000, which equaled the seller’s broker commission and which two witnesses testified was a reasonable purchaser’s broker commission, was supported by the evidence. (Note – this judgment amount was less than half of what the broker sought in his breach of express contract claim – based on the unsigned 5% commission agreement.)

The Court rejected defendant’s ‘unclean hands’ defense premised on plaintiff’s failure to publicly list the property (so he could purchase it himself) and his lag time in asserting his commission rights.

The unclean hands doctrine prevents a party from taking advantage of its own wrong.  It prevents a plaintiff from obtaining legal relief where he is guilty of misconduct in connection with the subject matter of the litigation.  For misconduct to preclude recovery, it must rise to the level of fraud or bad faith. In addition, the misconduct must be directly aimed at the party against whom relief is sought.  Conduct geared towards a third party, no matter how egregious, generally won’t support an unclean hands defense.

Here, the defendant’s allegation that the plaintiff failed to publicly list the property, even if true, wasn’t directed at the defendant.  If anything, the failure to list negatively impacted the non-party property owner, not the defendant.

Afterwords:

In the real estate broker setting, procuring cause doctrine provides a viable fall-back theory of recovery in the absence of a definite, enforceable contract.

Where a broker offers witness testimony of a customary broker commission for a similar property sale, this can serve as a sufficient evidentiary basis for a procuring cause/quantum meruit recovery.

 

Commission Payment Terms in Employment Contract Trump Cable Rep’s ‘Procuring Cause’ Claim in Sales Contract Spat – IL Court

I once represented a client who sued his former employer – an energy company – for unpaid commission and bonuses.  Before he hired me, the client filed a pro se administrative claim with the Illinois Department of Labor (DOL) to recover the monies.  The DOL found in my client’s favor but could not decide on a specific dollar amount. Several months later, I sued to recover under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (Wage Act) and for breach of contract.  In that case, which settled favorably for us, the employer unsuccessfully argued my client’s prior DOL case precluded our civil Wage Act claim.  The trial court rejected this res judicata argument on the basis that the DOL proceeding was not equivalent to a prior adjudication on the merits.

Borum v. Wideopenwest Illinois, LLC, 2015 IL App (1st) 141482-U, a two-year old, unpublished decision, presents a similar fact pattern and considers whether an ex-employee’s earlier administrative claim prevents a later civil lawsuit against the same employer for the same claim.  The case also spotlights the interplay between an employment agreement’s payment terms and the procuring cause doctrine in a sales commissions dispute.

Defendant hired plaintiff to prospect for cable customers.  It agreed to pay plaintiff a commission based on customers he signed up.  The defendant’s standard employment contract documented the plaintiff’s commission payment rights: plaintiff earned his commission once a customer signed a right-of-entry agreement with the cable supplier.

After lodging an unsuccessful DOL, plaintiff sued the cable company in state court to recover unpaid sales commissions. The trial court granted defendant’s motion to dismiss all counts of the plaintiff’s complaint and plaintiff appealed.

Affirming the trial court’s dismissal, the Court first considered whether the plaintiff’s DOL proceeding barred his civil suit under res judicata or collateral estoppel principles.  Section 14 of the Wage Act authorizes an employee to file either a DOL claim or a civil action, but not both, to recover underpayment damages along with 2% per month of the underpaid amount.

The DOL ruled against the plaintiff.  It found the right-of-entry agreements were not consummated until signed by both a customer and the defendant employer.)

The Court found the DOL hearing was too informal and not “judicial” or “adjudicatory” enough to defeat plaintiff’s later civil suit under the res judicata rule.

Res judicata requires a final judgment on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction.  Collateral estoppel precludes litigation of an issue previously decided in an earlier proceeding.  Res judicata and collateral estoppel can extend to administrative proceedings that are judicial, adjudicatory or quasi-judicial in nature.

So where administrative proceedings involve sworn testimony, are adversarial in nature and include cross-examination of witnesses, they can bar a subsequent civil suit.

Here, since the DOL conducted only an informal hearing with no cross-examination or sworn witnesses, the DOL had no adjudicatory power over the parties and so its finding for defendant had no preclusive effect against the plaintiff’s lawsuit.

The court also rejected plaintiff’s procuring cause argument.  Designed to soften the harsh impact of at-will contracts, the procuring cause doctrine allows a departed salesperson to recover commissions on sales he/she consummated before his/her employment ends even where the money isn’t paid to the employer until after the salesperson departs.  The procuring cause rule is only a gap filler though: it’s a default rule that only applies where a contract is silent on when commissions are paid.

Since plaintiff’s contract with defendant specifically provided plaintiff would be paid commissions earned during (but not after) the period of the employment, the court found this specific enough to vitiate the procuring cause rule.

Lastly, the Court considered whether defendant violated its handbook which stated compensation terms could only be changed on 30 days advance notice.  Plaintiff argued that the defendant made a unilateral change to its compensation policy without giving plaintiff the requisite notice.

The key question for the Court was whether the employee manual was an enforceable contract. For an employee handbook to vest an employee with binding contract rights, (1) the handbook promise must be clear enough that an employee reasonably believes and offer has been made, (2) the handbook offer must be distributed to the employee so that he/she actually receives it or is aware of its contents; the (3) the employee must accept the offer by commencing work after learning of the policy statement.

Since the plaintiff conceded he wasn’t aware of the employee manual until the day he was fired, the court found he couldn’t reasonably show the handbook provided him with enforceable contract rights. (¶¶ 83-85).

Bullet-points:

  • Administrative claims can support a res judicata defense but only where the administrative hearing is adversarial (judicial) in nature; such as where witnesses give sworn testimony that can be tested on cross-examination;
  • The procuring cause rule won’t trump specific contract payment terms;
  • A written employer policy on compensation adjustments isn’t binding against an employer where the aggrieved employee isn’t aware of the policy until on or after he/she’s fired.

 

 

 

 

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Procuring Cause Real Estate Broker Entitled to Quantum Meruit Commission – IL First Dist.

Halpern v. Titan Commercial, LLC, 2016 IL App (1st) 152129 examines commercial broker’s liens, the procuring cause doctrine and the quantum meruit remedy under Illinois law.

The Plaintiff property buyer sued to remove the defendant’s real estate broker’s lien after plaintiff bought Chicago commercial property from an owner introduced by the broker a few years prior.  Over a two-year span, the broker tried to facilitate plaintiff’s purchase the property by arranging multiple meetings and showings of the site.  The plaintiff ultimately bought the property through a consultant instead of the broker defendant. 

The plaintiff sued to stop the broker from foreclosing its broker’s lien and to quiet title to the parcel.  After the court entered a preliminary injunction for the plaintiff, the broker counterclaimed for breach of contract and quantum meruit.  After a bench trial, the broker was awarded $50,000 on its quantum meruit claim and Plaintiff appealed.

Result: Judgment for broker affirmed.

Rules/reasoning:

The court first upheld the trial court’s denial of the plaintiff’s claims for attorneys’ fees against the broker based on  Section 10(l) of the Commercial Broker’s Lien Act, 770 ILCS 15/1, et seq. (the “Act”).  This Act section provides that a prevailing party can recover its costs and attorneys’ fees.  A prevailing party is one who obtains “some sort of affirmative relief after [trial] on the merits.”

The appeals court held that the plaintiff wasn’t a prevailing party under the Act simply by obtaining a preliminary injunction.  Since the preliminary injunction is, by definition, a temporary (and preliminary) ruling, there was no final disposition of the validity of the defendant’s broker’s lien.

The court then focused on the procuring cause doctrine and related quantum meruit remedy.  Under the procuring cause rule, where a broker’s efforts ultimately result in a sale of property – even if consummated through a different broker – the first broker is the procuring cause and can recover a reasonable commission.

A broker is the procuring cause where he brings a buyer and seller together or is instrumental in the sale’s completion based on the broker’s negotiations or information it supplies. (¶ 18)

A procuring cause broker is entitled to a commission under a quantum meruit theory where a party receives a benefit from the broker’s services that is unjust for that party to retain – even where there’s no express contract between the parties.

Here, the plaintiff only knew of this off-market property based on defendant showing it to her and introducing her to the property owner.  Had it not been for defendant’s actions, plaintiff would have never known about the property.

What About Broker Abandonment?

A defense to a procuring cause claim is where a broker abandons a deal.  To demonstrate broker abandonment, a purchaser must offer evidence of the broker’s discontinuing its services but also the purchaser’s own abandonment of its intent to buy the property.

Here, neither the purchaser nor the broker exhibited an intention to abandon the deal.  The purchaser eventually bought the property and the broker continued trying to arrange plaintiff’s purchase for two-plus years.

The court credited the broker’s evidence as to a reasonable commission based on the property’s $4.2M sale price.  Two experts testified for the broker that a reasonable commission would be between 1% and 6%.  The trial court’s $50,000 award fell well within that range. (¶¶ 22-24)

Afterwords:

1/ Where a broker introduces a plaintiff to property she ultimately buys or the broker’s information is integral to the plaintiff’s eventual purchase, the broker can recover a reasonable commission even where plaintiff uses another broker (or buys it herself). 

2/ Quantum meruit provides a valuable fall-back remedy where there is no express contract between a broker and a buyer.  The broker can recover a reasonable commission (based on expert testimony, probably) so long as it proves the buyer derived a benefit from the broker’s pre-purchase services.