Tag: summary judgment

Missing “Course Of Dealing” Evidence Dooms Wedding Dress Seller on Summary Judgment – IL ND

In a Memorandum Opinion and Order that quotes Neil Sedaka and Taylor Swift in its footnotes, the District Court in House of Brides, Inc. v. Angelo, 2016 WL 698093 (N.D.Ill. 2016), examines the quantity and quality of evidence required to win a summary judgment motion. 

The plaintiff sold wedding clothes on-line and in retail stores and the defendant was the plaintiff’s main supplier.  The plaintiff sued the dress maker in state court for breach of contract claiming many of the dresses were defective or shipped later than promised. 

After it removed the case to Federal court, the defendant counter-sued the plaintiff for unpaid invoices. The defendant moved for summary judgment on its counterclaims as well as on plaintiff’s claims.

Partly siding with the defendant, the court discussed some common Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) claims and defenses and the required elements of a summary judgment affidavit.

The UCC governs contracts for the sale of goods and wedding dresses constitute goods under the UCC.  A seller who delivers accepted goods to a buyer can sue the buyer for the price of the goods accepted along with incidental damages where a buyer fails to pay for the goods.  810 ILCS 5/2-709.

In a goods contract, written contract terms can be explained or supplemented by a “course of performance, course of dealing, or usage of trade.” However, written terms cannot be contradicted by evidence of a prior agreement or an oral agreement made at the same time as the written one by the parties.

Here, the plaintiff argued that the course of dealing showed that defendant routinely accepted late payments and so defendant’s “net 30” invoice language was excused.

The court rejected this argument.  It held that avoiding the 30-day payment deadline was a material change that would have to be in writing since the Statute of Frauds governs contracts for the sale of goods exceeding $500 and the dresses involved in this suit easily eclipsed that value.

The court also rejected the plaintiff’s set-off defense against the defendant’s breach of contract counterclaim since a set-off must relate to the same contract being sued on (the court’s example: a seafood buyer can’t set off the price of frogs’ legs because the seller previously sent bad fish in a previous order)

Next, the court struck the plaintiff’s affidavit in support of its breach of implied warranty of merchantability claim on the basis of hearsay. 

In Federal court, an affidavit in support of or opposing summary judgment must be based on personal knowledge, show the witness’s competence and constitute admissible evidence.  Conclusory statements or affidavit testimony based on hearsay is inadmissible on summary judgment.  

The plaintiff’s affidavit testimony that there were dress defects that required refunds was too vague to survive defendant’s summary judgment motion.  This was because no employee stated that he/she personally issued any refunds or had first-hand knowledge of any dress defects that warranted a refund. 

What’s more, the seller failed to offer any authenticated business records that showed either the claimed dress defects or the refund amounts.  Without admissible evidence, the plaintiff seller failed to challenge the defendant’s breach of contract claim and the court awarded summary judgment to the defendant.

Afterwords:

1/ This case shows importance of furnishing admissible evidence when challenging summary judgment;

2/ Hearsay evidence in a summary judgment affidavit will be rejected;

3/ Course of performance or course of dealing can augment or explain written contract terms but cannot contradict them;

4/ A set-off defense must pertain to contract being sued on instead of a separate agreement;

 

 

 

Retailers’ Sales Forecasts Not Factual Enough to Buttress Fraud In Inducement Claim (IL ND)

The Northern District of Illinois provides a useful synopsis of Federal court summary judgment standards and the scope of some Illinois business torts in a dispute over a canceled advertising contract to sell hand tools.

The plaintiff in Loggerhead Tools, LLC v. Sears Holding Corp., 2016 WL 5111573 (N.D.Ill. 2016) sued Sears when it canceled an agreement to promote the plaintiff’s Bionic Wrench product and instead bought from plaintiff’s competitor.   The plaintiff claimed that after Sears terminated their contract, it was too late for the plaintiff to supply product to competing retailers.  Plaintiff filed a flurry of fraud claims alleging the department store giant made inflated sales forecasts and failed to disclose it was working with  plaintiff’s competitor.  Sears successfully moved for summary judgment on the plaintiff’s claims.

Summary Judgment Guideposts

Summary judgment is appropriate where the movant shows there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.  Courts deciding summary judgment must view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party only if there is a “genuine” dispute as to those facts.  A genuine fact dispute exists where a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party. 

The summary judgment movant has the initial burden of establishing an absence of a genuine fact dispute.  Once the movant meets this burden, it then shifts to the nonmovant/respondent who must point to specific evidence in the record that shows there is a genuine issue for trial.  But only “material” factual disputes will prevent summary judgment.  A fact is material where it is so important that it could alter the case’s outcome.

Fraud Analysis:

The crux of Plaintiff’s fraud suit was that Sears strung Plaintiff along by creating the false impression that Sears would market Plaintiff’s products.  Plaintiff alleged that Sears concealed its master plan to work with Plaintiff’s competitor and only feigned interest in Plaintiff until Sears struck a deal with a competing vendor.

An Illinois fraud plaintiff must show:  (1) defendant made a false statement of material fact, (2) defendant knew the statement was false, (3) the defendant intended the statement to induce the plaintiff to act, (4) the plaintiff justifiably relied on the statement’s truth, and (5) plaintiff suffered damages as a result of relying on the statement.

A bare broken promise doesn’t equal fraud.  An exception to this “promissory fraud” rule is where the defendant’s actions are part of a “scheme to defraud:” that is, the defendant’s actions are part of a pattern of deception.  The scheme exception also applies where the plaintiff can show the defendant did not intend to fulfill his promise at the time it was made (not in hindsight).

In determining whether a plaintiff’s reliance on a defendant’s misstatement is reasonable, the court looks at all facts that the plaintiff had actual knowledge of as well as facts the plaintiff may have learned through ordinary prudence.

Here, Sears’ sales forecasts were forward-looking, “promissory” statements of hoped-for sales results.  Sears’ profuse contractual disclaimers that sales forecasts were just “estimates” to be used “for planning purposes” only and “not commitments” prevented the Plaintiff from establishing reasonable reliance on the projections.

The court also rejected the plaintiff’s fraudulent concealment claim.  To prevail on a fraud claim premised on concealment of material facts, the plaintiff must show that the defendant had a duty to disclose the material fact.  Such a duty will arise where the parties have a special or fiduciary relationship that gives rise to a duty to speak.  

Parties to a contract are generally not fiduciaries.  Relevant factors to determine whether a fiduciary relationship exists include (1) degree of kinship of the parties, and (2) disparity in age, health, mental condition, education and business experience between the parties.

Here, there was no disparity between the parties.  They were both sophisticated businesses who operated at arms’ length from one another.

Afterwords: This case provides a good distillation of summary judgment rules, promissory fraud and the scheme to defraud exception to promissory fraud not being actionable.  It echoes how difficult it is for a plaintiff to plead and prove fraud – especially in the business-to-business setting where there is equal bargaining power between litigants.

This case provides a good distillation of summary judgment rules, promissory fraud and the scheme to defraud exception to the promissory fraud rule.  The case further illustrates the difficulty of proving fraud – especially in the business-to-business setting where there is equal bargaining power between the parties.

 

 

 

Getting E-Mails Into Evidence: (Ind.) Federal Court Weighs In

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Since e-mail is the dominant form of business communication across the globe, it’s no surprise that it comprises a large chunk of the documents used as evidence at a business dispute trial.

Email’s prevalence in lawsuits makes it crucial for litigators to understand the key evidence authenticity and foundational rules that govern whether an email gets into evidence.  This is especially true where an email goes to the heart of a plaintiff’s claims (or defendant’s defenses) and the e-mail author or recipient denies the e-mail’s validity.

Finnegan v. Myers, 2015 WL 5252433 (N.D. Ind. 2015), serves as a recent example of a Federal court applying fundamental evidence rules to the e-mail communications context.

In the case, the plaintiffs, whose teenaged daughter died under suspicious circumstances, sued various Indiana child welfare agencies for lodging criminal child neglect charges against them that were eventually dropped.  The plaintiffs then filed Federal civil rights and various due process claims against the defendants.

The defendants moved for summary judgment and then sought to strike some of plaintiffs’ evidence opposing summary judgment.  A key piece of evidence relied on by the plaintiff in opposing summary judgment that the defendants sought to exclude as improper hearsay was an e-mail from a forensic pathologist to child welfare personnel that called into questions the results of a prior autopsy of the deceased.

Denying defendants’ two motions (the summary judgment motion and motion to strike), the Court provides a useful gloss on the operative evidence rules that control e-mail documents in litigation.

  • The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) require a proponent to produce evidence sufficient to support a finding the item is authentic – that it is what the proponent claims it to be;
  • FRE 901 recognizes several methods of authentication including witness testimony, expert or non-expert comparisons, distinctive characteristics, and public records, among others;
  • FRE 902 recognizes certain evidence as inherently trustworthy and “self-authenticating” (requiring no additional proof of authenticity).  Evidence in this camp includes public records, official publications, newspapers and periodicals, commercial paper, and certified domestic records of a regularly conducted activity;
  • Authentication only relates to the source of the documents – it does not mean that the documents’ contents are taken as true;
  • E-mails may be authenticated by circumstantial evidence such as (a) viewing the e-mail’s contents in light of the factual background of the case, (b) identifying the sender and receiver via affidavit, (c) identifying the sender by the e-mail address from which the e-mail was sent, (d) comparing the email’s substance to other evidence in the case, and (e) comparing the e-mail to other statements by the claimed author of a given email.

(** 5-6)

Applying these guideposts, the court found that the plaintiff sufficiently established that the subject email was genuine (i.e., it was what it purported to be) and that it was up to the jury to determine what probative value the email evidence had at trial.

The court also agreed with the plaintiff that the pathologist’s email wasn’t hearsay: it was not used for the truth of the email.  Instead, it was simply used to show that the State  agency was put on notice of a second autopsy and changes in the pathologist’s cause of death opinions.

Afterwords:

This case resonates with me since I’ve litigated cases in the past where a witness flatly denies sending an email even though it’s from an e-mail address associated with the witness.  In those situations. I’ve had to compile other evidence – like the recipient’s affidavit – and had to show the denied email is congruent with other evidence in the case to negate the denial.

Finnegan neatly melds FRE 901 and 902 and provides a succinct summary of what steps a litigator must take to establish the authenticity of e-mail evidence.