Motions to Dismiss

Northern District of Illinois Federal Court Dismisses Double Derivative Shareholder Action Due to Lack of Parent / Subsidiary Corporate Relationship

June 15, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Members of the board of directors of a corporation have the responsibility to orchestrate the business in such a way that is advantageous to the shareholders and the continued growth and prosperity of the company. However, there are times when those directors may act in a way that serves their own interests, and the only way to protect the business is for shareholders to file a derivative suit on behalf of the company. Lubin Austermuehle is always researching new developments in this field of law, and our Chicago shareholder derivative action attorneys recently came across one such case filed here in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern District federal court.

Reiniche v. Martin is a double derivative suit brought by individual plaintiffs who are shareholders of a corporation, Health Alliance Holdings (HAH), that itself is a primary shareholder of HA Holdings (Holdings), another corporation. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants sought to freeze them and other HAH shareholders out through a series of illegal and wasteful acts that resulted in an insider transaction to sell Holdings for $10 and debt relief to another company in which Defendants had an interest. That transaction was approved by Holdings’ board of directors in spite of the fact that there was no quorum present to do so, and HAH was denied its right to sit on the board. In doing so, Plaintiffs alleged that the Defendant directors and other shareholders of Holdings breached their fiduciary duties to the company. Defendants then moved to dismiss the suit under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), claiming that Plaintiffs lacked standing, their claim was untimely, and the claims are insufficient under the law and barred by the business judgment rule.

The Court held that Plaintiffs did not have double derivative standing because such standing is only granted in the context of a parent/subsidiary relationship, and HAH was only a shareholder in Holdings – it was not a parent or holding company of Holdings. The Court went on to say that because the individual Defendant shareholders were each minority owners, none of them had a controlling interest in Holdings, and therefore did not owe a fiduciary duty to the Plaintiffs. As such, the Court found no policy reason for invoking a double derivative action and granted Defendants’ motions to dismiss.

Settlement Agreements With Former Employees Containing Broad Release Language May Prevent Subsequent Qui Tam Actions

May 25, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

No matter what kind of business you own and operate, an unfortunate part of running a company is the inevitable employment disputes with employees. Whether it is an action over wages, job duties, or other issues, many business owners will find themselves in court opposite a current or former employee at some point. Lubin Austermuehle’s Naperville business attorneys know the legal challenges that business owners face, and are always mindful of new case law that affects our clients.

Enterprise Recovery Systems, Inc. v. Salmeron is a decision handed down by the Appellate Court of Illinois earlier this year regarding an employer/employee dispute filed in the circuit court of Cook County. Plaintiff Enterprise Recovery Systems hired Defendant Salmeron as general manager and director of operations for their recovery and resolution of delinquent student loans business. Defendant worked for Plaintiff for four years before being terminated, and she sued Plaintiff for sexual harassment. This case settled, and Defendant signed a broadly worded release containing language that discharged Plaintiff from any other claims arising out of Defendant’s employment with Plaintiff in exchange for $300,000. After this settlement, Defendant Salmeron filed a qui tam action against Plaintiff Enterprise on behalf of the federal government alleging that Enterprise had defrauded the government. The federal government declined to intervene in the qui tam action, and the lawsuit was eventually dismissed with prejudice due to the misconduct of Salmeron’s lawyer, according to the court. Because of issues brought to light in the qui tam action, Plaintiff filed suit against Defendant alleging fraud in the inducement and breach of Defendant’s duty of loyalty to Plaintiff. After the court found repeated misconduct by Defendant’s attorney (which included multiple violations of court orders), the trial court banned Defendant from presenting evidence in her defense of the fraud and breach of fiduciary duty action. Plaintiff then moved for summary judgment on both claims.

Plaintiff’s motion showed that Defendant produced company log reports in the qui tam suit and those reports were stolen from the Plaintiff. Furthermore, Plaintiff alleged that Defendant failed to alert Plaintiff about the supposed illegal conduct of Plaintiff’s employees prior to notifying the government and filing the qui tam lawsuit. Additionally, Plaintiffs contended that Defendant planned to file the qui tam action before signing the release that was a part of the sexual harassment suit settlement. Defendant failed to file a response to the motion for summary judgment, so the court granted the motion. Plaintiff appealed, and the matter was reviewed de novo by the Appellate Court.

The Appellate Court upheld the trial court’s grant of summary judgment as to the fraud in the inducement claim because the court found that Defendant knew she had information for the qui tam case against Plaintiff at the time she negotiated the sexual harassment claim’s settlement and release. Furthermore, the court found that Defendant waited until she had received her last settlement payment before filing the qui tam lawsuit and signed the settlement agreement with no intention of honoring it. The Court upheld summary judgment as to Plaintiff’s breach of the duty of loyalty cause of action because Defendant was a high-level member of Plaintiff’s management team and owed a duty of loyalty to the company. This duty was breached when Defendant sought to profit from information harmful to the company that was obtained through her position of trust within the company. The Court also explained that it was reasonable for Plaintiffs to expect Defendant to neither exploit her position for personal gain nor hinder the business operations of the company

Northern District of Illinois Grants Motion to Dismiss in Trade Secrets Case Due to Lack of Personal Jurisdiction

May 24, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

After hiring someone, businesses expect not only that their new employee will perform his job adequately, but also that he will do no harm to the company or its ability to do business. Employers know that their expectations are not always met by those employees, which is why the use of employment contracts with non-compete clauses are quite common these days. Our Chicago restrictive covenant attorneys just discovered a recent court decision that details a dispute between an employer and an ex-employee regarding one such employment agreement.

In Zep Inc. v. First Aid Corp., Plaintiff Zep employed the individual Defendants as sales representatives for its industrial cleaning products business pursuant to an employment agreement that contained non-disclosure, non-solicitation, and non-compete provisions. During their employment, Defendants had access to Plaintiff’s customer lists, supplier lists, pricing information, and other proprietary information. Eventually, a competitor, Defendant First Aid, hired the other named Defendants away from Plaintiff and subsequently solicited Plaintiffs clients and other employees.

As a result, Plaintiff filed suit for breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation under the Illinois Trade Secrets Act (ITSA), and tortious interference with contract. Plaintiff contends that First Aid induced the other Defendants to breach the employment agreements they signed with Plaintiff and that the other Defendants used and disclosed Plaintiffs trade secrets. In response, Defendants filed motions to dismiss the claims, which were granted as to three of the individual defendants due to a lack of personal jurisdiction. The Court found that because three of the individual Defendants were residents of Michigan and Ohio, Plaintiff is located in Georgia, and the employment agreements were signed outside of Illinois, they did not have the requisite minimum contacts to give an Illinois court jurisdiction over the matter. Furthermore, Plaintiff had not alleged that any of Defendants’ actions were aimed at Illinois, and neither had their actions caused harm to Plaintiff in Illinois, so specific personal jurisdiction was also improper. The Court denied the remaining motions to dismiss – finding that the non-compete provisions were enforceable because the geographic limitations were reasonable and the non-solicitation clause was limited in scope to Plaintiff’s competitors for a span of one year. Plaintiff’s allegations were also found to be sufficient to support a claim under the ITSA because it had identified a list of confidential information and trade secrets in its pleadings.

Court Rules that Expiration of Public Transit Passes is Legal

May 23, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Lubin Austermuehle prosecutes consumer protection class-action lawsuits on a regular basis, and in order to best serve our present and future clients, we are always mindful of new Illinois cases in the field. Howard v. Chicago Transit Authority is a consumer rights decision from the Appellate Court of Illinois that our attorneys found in the course of their research.

Howard v. Chicago Transit Authority is a case between those who ride public transportation in Chicago and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). Initially, the named Plaintiff started the litigation because of Defendant CTA’s policy of allowing the transit cards needed to ride on Defendant’s transit system to expire one year after the cards are issued. The named Plaintiff had purchased such a card, and when that card expired, he lost the remaining balance on his card. After discovering that he had lost the money on the card, Plaintiff filed a putative class-action lawsuit, alleging violations of the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Defendant then filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted by the trial court. Plaintiffs then appealed the lower court’s dismissal.

The Appellate Court reviewed the trial court’s dismissal de novo and examined the reasoning used by the lower court’s decision. The case was dismissed by the trial court because Defendant successfully argued that Plaintiff’s claims could not stand due to the terms and conditions of the card. These terms and conditions clearly stated that the transit card had an expiration date and could not be redeemed for cash, replaced, or refunded. Additionally, upon purchase of the transit card, the Court held that Plaintiff had entered into a valid contract of carriage and therefore Defendant had committed no wrongful conduct. Plaintiff claimed that the terms and conditions of the card referred only to the use of the card itself and not the use of money placed on the card. The Court disagreed and upheld the trial court’s ruling that use of the card was part and parcel of using the money on the card. The Court went on to state that “the terms on a fare pass are incorporated into the carrier’s contract for carriage and are enforceable as written.” Thus, because the contract for carriage contained the expiration clause and Plaintiffs accepted those terms, the contract was valid and the suit was properly dismissed.

Employers Should Ensure They Have Adequate Evidence Before Filing Suit Against Former Employees

May 4, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Most employers at some point will face the prospect of an employee failing to perform their job adequately. Additionally, some employees breach fiduciary duties owed the company or commit fraud and other harmful acts during the course of their employment. Hytel Group, Inc. v. Butler is a recent case out of the Appellate Court of Illinois that is just such a dispute between a Plaintiff employer and its Defendant ex-employee. Our Schaumburg business litigation attorneys discovered this decision and want to pass along the information to our readers.

In Hytel Group, Inc. v. Butler, Plaintiff Hytel Group initially hired Defendant Butler as comptroller for the company in February of 2008 and fired Butler four months later in June of that year. During Butler’s employment, Hytel’s lender, GBC Funding, filed suit in response to Hytel allegedly defaulting on several obligations under their loan agreement and Hytel’s failure to respond to the notices of default sent to them by GBC. Furthermore, GBC alleged that Hytel failed to cooperate with a restructuring officer approved by GBC pursuant to another agreement. This agreement was for GBC to refrain from exercising their rights under the loan agreement in exchange for Hytel’s cooperation with the restructuring officer. Hytel then filed the action in question in December 2008 against Defendant Butler alleging that she breached her fiduciary duty of loyalty and committed fraud when she failed to perform certain job duties because of a relationship she developed with GBC.

After Butler was fired by Hytel, but before Hytel filed suit, she filed a claim with the Illinois Department of Labor for unpaid final wages, and she moved to dismiss Hytel’s lawsuit under the Citizen Participation Act. The motion was based upon the allegation that Hytel was suing her in retaliation for filing the wage claim. Butler also moved to dismiss Hytel’s suit on procedural grounds because Hytel failed to properly state a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty or for fraud. In dismissing Hytel’s claims, the trial court found that the Citizen Participation Act did apply to Butler’s wage claim, that she did not have a fiduciary relationship with Hytel, and that Hytel did not sufficiently allege all the elements of fraud. Plaintiff Hytel appealed the trial court’s ruling on the basis that Butler’s wage claim was a private dispute and the Citizen Participation Act is concerned with protecting free speech and citizen participation in government.

The Appellate Court reviewed the legislative intent behind the Citizen Participation Act and found that the state of Illinois intended the law to be construed broadly. As such, the Court found that Butler’s wage claim was an exercise of her right to petition for redress of grievances and therefore fell within the express language of the Act that protects actions taken in furtherance of a citizen’s right to petition. The Court went on to hold that the Act contains no public concern requirement and the fact that the wage claim was a private dispute did not matter. Finally, the Court found that Hytel’s suit was retaliatory in nature and upheld the trial court’s dismissal of the action and the award of attorneys fees under the Act.

This case provides a warning for business owners who file suit against former employees for a breach of duty, particularly if there is an existing wage or other employment dispute between the parties. Hytel Group, Inc. v. Butler shows that Illinois courts will dismiss such claims pursuant to the Citizen Participation Act if there evidence that the suit filed by the employer is retaliatory in nature. As such, employers should ensure that they have ample evidence to show the legitimacy of their claims before filing, as they may be on the hook for the opposing party’s attorneys fees should the court find a retaliatory impetus for the action.

Northern District of Illinois Federal Court Grants Motion to Strike Plaintiff’s Request for Injunctive Relief in Breach of Contract Case

April 26, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

Lubin Austermuehle has successfully litigated many business disputes, and in our many years of experience we have found that contract claims are among the most contentious conflicts. Because so many of our clients deal with breach of contract issues, our Elmhurst business attorneys are always mindful of new court decisions issued in this area of the law. In fact, our lawyers just discovered one such case, Jumpfly Inc. v. Torling, in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Jumpfly Inc. v. Torling pits a Plaintiff employer against two former employees who allegedly violated the non-compete agreements signed when they were hired by Plaintiff. Plaintiff contends that Defendant Torling started a competing pay-per-click internet advertising side-business while in Defendant’s employ, and upon discovering its employee’s side-business, fired him and sent a cease and desist letter demanding that he stop violating the non-compete. The parties eventually negotiated a settlement allowing Torling to continue his business, but the agreement prohibited him from soliciting any of Plaintiff’s employees. Torling allegedly solicited Defendant Burke — who was working for Plaintiff at the time under a similar non-compete agreement — and got him to quit his position with Plaintiff to work for Defendant Torling.

Plaintiff then filed suit against the two individuals and the new company (Windy City) that they worked for — alleging rescission of a settlement agreement, breach of contract, violations of the Lanham Act and Illinois Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and intentional interference with contract based upon non-compete agreements between the parties. Plaintiff’s requested the Court to enjoin Defendants’ competitive business conduct and for monetary damages. In response, Defendants filed a motion to strike Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief and filed a motion to dismiss under 12(b)(6).

The Court granted the motion to strike as to the breach of contract claim because the two year term of the non-compete agreement had already expired and an injunction would result in an unreasonable restraint of trade. The Court also noted that Plaintiff’s seven-month delay — after discovery of the illicit conduct — in asking for an injunction also weighed in favor of Defendants. The Court denied the motion to strike as to the statutory claims, however, because injunctive relief is provided by both laws which rendered the motion premature.

Next, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss the breach of contract and intentional interference with contract claims due to pleading insufficient facts that Defendant Windy City induced either of the individual Defendants to breach their contracts with Plaintiff. In dismissing Plaintiffs conspiracy to interfere with contract, the Court applied the Intracorporate Conspiracy Doctrine and declined to agree with Plaintiff’s argument that Defendants’ conduct fell with in an exception to the rule. Finally, the Court denied the motion to dismiss the settlement agreement breach claim as the effect of Defendants’ breaches had yet to be determined.

Northern District of Illinois Rules that State Law Overtime Claims Not Precluded by Prior Dismissal of FLSA Class-Action

February 28, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

When dealing with class-action wage and hour disputes, defendants will try to get the court to dismiss claims by any means that they can, and there are a variety of legal defenses that allow them to do so. At Lubin Austermuehle, our overtime lawyers are familiar with all of the tricks of the trade, so to speak, so they were interested to discover a case that illuminates just one of these many tools that is utilized by defendants to escape liability.

In Anyere v. Wells Fargo Co. Inc, Plaintiffs were current and former employees of Defendant and worked as credit managers who provided customers primarily with loan consolidation services. Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit alleging overtime violations under Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) because they were required to work during lunch, on weekends, and late into the night on a regular basis. Plaintiffs also alleged that Defendant “verbally disciplined employees for logging more than forty hours per week” and would adjust employees’ time records to stay under the overtime threshold. In response to these allegations, Defendant moved to dismiss the action on the basis of collateral estoppel due to a previous lawsuit filed against Defendant in California for the same overtime violations.

The Court dismissed the FLSA claims for nationwide relief based upon issue preclusion — the California-filed class-action was dismissed because the members of the proposed class were not similarly situated. However, the Court maintained the statewide action because the prior case did not contemplate an Illinois-only class-action and therefore could not have been litigated previously.

Southern District of Illinois Federal Court Dismisses Minimum Wage Claim for Failure to Plead Sufficient Facts

February 28, 2011 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

A motions to dismiss is a weapon that is frequently used in large scale wage claim litigation, as it is an easy and expedient way for defendants to eliminate many lawsuits. Lubin Austermuehle is an experienced class-action law firm whose Chicago wage and hour attorneys frequently handle overtime disputes, and we deal with such motions on a regular basis, which is why our lawyers were interested in a case out of the Southern District of Illinois that discusses the federal standard for dismissals under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 12(b)(6).

FRCP 12(b)(6) allows litigants to dismiss an action for a failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted by a federal court. Nicholson v. UTI Worldwide, Inc. is an action brought by forklift operators who worked for Defendant Uti in its warehouses in Illinois. Plaintiffs claimed that they were forced to work without pay prior to the start of their shifts performing inspections, logging into computer systems, “donning special clothing and protective gear,” and other activities. Because they were not paid for this work, Plaintiffs claimed that Defendant had violated the Fairl Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the Illinois Minimum Wage Law (IMWL). In their complaint, Plaintiffs failed to plead how frequently the pre-shift activities occurred and also included no estimates of the applicable wage rates that applied during the times that Plaintiff’s performed such work. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss for the lack of pleading specificity in response to Plaintiff’s complaint.

In making its decision, the Court held that Defendants had been sufficiently notified of the overtime claims because Plaintiffs plead enough facts to show that their employment was covered by FLSA and the IMWL. Despite the fact that the complaint did not include allegations that Plaintiffs worked over forty hours a week, Plaintiffs did allege that they worked “overtime,” which was enough to give Defendant notice of the claim. However, the Court dismissed the minimum wage claims because Plaintiffs failed to plead facts suggesting that their actual wages fell beneath the applicable minimum wage. Thus, the Court allowed the overtime claims to proceed, but dismissed the minimum wage claim under the IMWL.

Hardship to Former Employee Should Be Considered Outside Motion to Dismiss, First District Rules

October 30, 2009 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

A First District Court of Appeal ruling had an interesting lesson for our Chicago noncompete clause attorneys. In Baird and Warner Residential Sales Inc. v. Mazzone, No. 1-07-2179 (Aug. 15, 2008), the First ruled that a trial court needed more evidence in a dispute about a covenant not to compete before it could correctly grant a motion to dismiss. The case arose when Baird & Warner Residential Sales sued former employee Patricia Mazzone and her new employer, Midwest Realty Ventures (doing business as Prudential Preferred Properties). Both real estate companies have multiple branches and more than 1,000 employees in the Chicagoland area.

Mazzone was office manager for B&W’s Lincoln Park office for about 11 years before leaving for Prudential. During that time, she signed a contract that included a covenant not to solicit services from any B&W employees or independent contractors, or people who had left those jobs within the last six months, for up to a year after leaving. This contract contained a severability clause, and the “preface” to the contract specified that it applied “regarding the Lincoln Park office,” although the restrictive covenant referred to “Company.” In 2007, Mazzone resigned from her job and took another running Prudential’s Michigan Avenue office. About a month later, B&W sued for a temporary restraining order and injunction seeking to enforce the covenant and keep Mazzone and Prudential from soliciting B&W employees, alleging breach of contract by Mazzone, tortious interference with contract by Prudential, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage by both parties.

After an injunction and expedited discovery, defendants moved to dismiss because the covenant was overly broad, alleging that it would keep any Prudential employee from soliciting any B&W employee or contractor from any office. B&W contended that the preface restricted the covenant to the Lincoln Park office and affirmatively stated that it did not seek to enforce it beyond that office. In the alternative, they argued that the severability clause should allow that portion to be separated from the rest of the agreement. The trial court granted the motion to dismiss, saying the contract’s plain language related to all of B&W’s offices. Plaintiffs appealed this ruling.

The appeals court started its opinion by considering B&W’s claim that the nonsolicitation contract was not improper under the law. It noted that motions to dismiss are not necessarily appropriate in fact-intensive situations like this one, since the rules limit courts to consideration of facts in the complaint. It then turned to the controversy over whether the contract applied to all offices or just the Lincoln Park office and found that there was insufficient evidence. The record does not show enough evidence to determine whether the contract, as written, is overly broad and poses an undue hardship on Mazzone, the court wrote, or negative effects on the public from the restraint of trade. It also disagreed that enforcing the contract would “render Mazzone unemployable,” since she would be free to solicit employees of non-B&W brokers, even within the limited one-year period specified. Thus, the trial court should not have dismissed it without hearing more evidence, the court wrote. It reversed and remanded the case for more proceedings.

Restrictive Covenant Does Not Apply to Shopping Center Lease, Fourth District Decides

November 27, 2008 | Peter S. Lubin, Patrick Austermuehle and James V. DiTommaso

As Chicago business trial attorneys with substantial experience in disputes involving shopping centers, our firm was interested to see a recent Fourth District Court of Appeal decision allowing a shopping center to go through with its lease despite a restrictive covenant in a land sale by its predecessor. In Regency Commercial Associates v. Lopax, 4-06-0332 (May 4, 2007), the appeals court upheld the trial court’s ruling that the business at issue was not covered by the covenant, and that starting the lease while the case was still pending did not bar it from requesting a declaratory judgment.

Regency Commercial Associates, LLC and Lopax, Inc. are companies that own neighboring parcels of land in Savoy, Ill. The prior owner of Regency’s land, Arbours Development Limited Partnership, sold Lopax its land, which Lopax then leased to a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchisee. The sales contract between Lopax and Arbours restricted Arbours from allowing another “fast-food restaurant … or restaurant facility whose principal food product is chicken[.]” It also lists the types of businesses allowed, which include “casual dining.” Regency later purchased Arbours’ rights under the contract.

When Regency wanted to lease to a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, it negotiated with Lopax, arguing that the restaurant is “casual dining” and not fast food. Lopax disagreed, saying it believed the contract restricts any restaurant that primarily serves chicken. Regency filed for declaratory judgment, asking the court to find that Buffalo Wild Wings is not fast food and that the covenant restricts only fast-food restaurants that primarily sell chicken. Finding that there was a genuine issue of material fact to try, the court denied Lopax’s motion to dismiss.