Tag: ratification

Illinois Court Gives Agency Law Tutorial In Commercial Lease Fight

Three agency law issues that I regularly encounter in commercial litigation practice are (1) authority, (2) ratification and (3) a contract that doesn’t identify a valid entity.

The authority question posed is whether an individual – typically a company employee or independent contractor – can bind the company by the individual’s conduct.

Ratification applies where a corporate principal accepts the benefits of an agent’s unauthorized conduct.

The third, “unclear party” issue arises where a contract is signed by an individual on behalf of an unsueable entity such as a street address (i.e. “Tenant: 15 S. Wacker Drive”) or a generic business name with no “Inc.”, “Ltd.” or “LLC” designation.

Cove Management v. AFLAC, Inc. 2013 IL.App (1st) 120884, features all of these in a commercial lease dispute involving a large insurance company.

The lease designated the company as “tenant” but was signed by an independent  (non employee) sales agent.  After a lease default, the plaintiff landlord sued the company to recover rent damages.

The trial court dismissed the suit, buying the company’s argument that the agent who signed the lease wasn’t authorized to sign on the company’s behalf.  The landlord appealed.

Held: Affirmed.

Rules/Reasoning:

Even though the agent used business cards, envelopes and stationery submitted that bore the company colors and logo, it wasn’t enough to saddle the company with lease liability.

The Court rejected this argument as it laid out the operative Illinois agency rules:

– An agent’s authority to bind a principal can be actual or apparent;

– Actual authority can be express or implied;

– Express authority is authority explicitly granted to the an agent by the principal, while implied authority is proven circumstantially based on the nature of the agent’s position;

– Apparent authority is authority imposed by law – regardless of whether there is actual (express or implied) authority – based on a principal holding out an agent as having authority to bind the principal;

– Apparent authority must be based on words or conduct of the principal; not of the agent;

– If there is no showing of detrimental reliance by a third party on the agent’s authority; there can be no finding of apparent authority;

– A third party dealing with an agent has a duty to inquire into an agent’s supposed authority and can’t blindly rely on an agent’s claim that he has authority to enter contracts on behalf of his corporate principal;

– Ratification applies where a principal learns of an unauthorized action (taken by a supposed agent) but retains the benefits of the transaction;

– Ratification requires the principal- with full knowledge of an agent’s unauthorized act – to manifest the intention to accept the benefits of the unauthorized act or to acquiesce in the transaction

¶¶ 9-14.

The Court found that there was no actual authority since the agent’s independent contractor agreement specifically provided that the agent could not sign contracts for the company.

There was also no apparent authority since plaintiff pointed to no conduct by the company that clothed the agent with authority to execute leases in the company’s name.

All of plaintiff’s apparent authority arguments were based on conduct of the agent; not the company.

The Court also found the lessor failed to show the company ratified the agent’s conduct.  All rent payments that were made came from the agent and there was  no evidence the company even knew the lease existed before suit was filed.

The corporate lack of lease knowledge also doomed the lessor’s alternative unjust enrichment/quantum meruit counts.  Since the company didn’t know about the lease, the plaintiff couldn’t show it conferred a benefit on the insurance company based on the sales agent renting the office space.  (¶¶ 34-35). (Quantum meruit requires plaintiff to prove that the defendant benefitted from plaintiff’s services.)

Take-aways: This case demonstrates the paramount importance of precision in lease drafting.  The insurance company defendant probably should have vetted all independent agent leases to ensure that the leases don’t designate the company as tenant.

Procedurally, the case shows how important it is to file counter-affidavits in response to a section 2-619 or summary judgment motion.  Since the landlord didn’t file a counter-affidavit in response to the company’s own affidavit, the Court had to accept the company’s version of events as true.  This spelled defeat for the landlord.

Apparent Agency, Ratification and Long-Arm Jurisdiction: IL Law

The First District examines a slew of important substantive and procedural litigation issues in Graver v. Pinecrest Volunteer Fire Dept., 2014 IL App (1st) 123006, a commercial lease dispute pitting an Illinois corporation against a Tennessee corporation and an agent of that corporation.

The parties signed a fire truck lease that called for seven years’ worth of monthly payments.

The lease was signed by defendant’s former treasurer who said he had authority to sign on defendant’s behalf.  Plaintiff sued after the defendant defaulted and won an Illinois default judgment against both the corporate and individual defendants of over $92,000.

About fifteen months later, the corporate defendant moved to vacate the judgment under Code Section 2-1401 (for judgments more than 30 days but less than 2 years old).  It claimed the Illinois court lacked personal jurisdiction over it.   The trial court denied the motion and found that defendant  was subject to Illinois long-arm jurisdiction.

The First District reversed.

Holding that the trial court lacked jurisdiction over the Tennessee defendant, the court catalogued the key Illinois jurisdictional rules for foreign defendants:

– the plaintiff has the burden of establishing jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant;

– Code Section 2-209(c) (Illinois’ long-arm statute) provides that an Illinois court can exercise jurisdiction over a foreign defendant if permitted by the Illinois Constitution and the U.S. Constitution;

– Federal due process requires a foreign defendant to have “minimum contacts” with the forum state and to have “purposely availed” itself of the privileges of conducting activities in the forum state;

– Federal due process involves three factors: (1) whether the defendant had minimum contacts such that it had “fair warning” it may be haled into the forum state’s court; (2) the claim against the foreign defendant arose from or is related to the defendant’s contacts with the forum state; and (3) whether it’s reasonable to require the foreign defendant to litigate in another state;

– For Illinois to have general jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant, the defendant must have “continuous and systematic” business contacts with the forum state;

– Where specific jurisdiction applies, the foreign defendant can only be sued if the action arises from or is related to the defendant’s conduct in the forum state;

– In a breach of contract suit against an out-of-state defendant, the critical jurisdictional factors are (1) who initiated the transaction; (2) where the contract was formed; and (3) where the contract was performed;

– A choice-of-law contractual provision is relevant, but is not by itself a sufficient basis to subject a defendant to jurisdiction in another state.

(¶¶ 13-17).

Applying these rules, the First District found that Illinois lacked jurisdiction over the Tenn. defendant.  First, there was no general jurisdiction since the corporation’s contacts with Illinois were sparse: they weren’t continuous and systematic.  Also, the agent who signed the lease lacked authority to bind the defendant.  It offered an uncontested affidavit that established the agent was never authorized to sign contracts for the defendant.  The court also found that since defendant didn’t know about the lease until after the default judgment was entered, there was no ratification of the agent’s signing the lease.  ¶¶ 19-20.

The Court reversed the trial court’s jurisdiction ruling and voided the judgment against the defendant.

Take-aways: For an out-of-state corporation to be subject to Illinois specific jurisdiction, its contacts with Illinois must form the basis for the lawsuit.  In addition, where a plaintiff is trying to impute an agent’s actions to a corporate principal, the plaintiff must show that the principal said or did something to create in the plaintiff the reasonable belief that the agent could bind the principal.  My question is why didn’t the plaintiff file a counter-affidavit which detailed the actions of the agent and principal which led the plaintiff to assume the agent had authority to bind the principal? It’s not clear whether it would have made a difference; but a counter-affidavit would have at least given the plaintiff a fighting chance.