Articles Posted in Breach of Contract

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The Illinois 1st District Appellate Court affirmed a decision of Cook County Judge Patricia Sheahan regarding a motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Charles Arbogast who was injured working as a photographer in a designated photo well at Wrigley Field.  Arbogast fell on a stack of pallets that photographers stood on to take photographs during the game. He was injured when  he fell.

Arbogast filed suit against the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club LLC, Chicago National League Baseball Club Inc. and Chicago Cubs Inc. (collectively, Cubs).

The Cubs moved to dismiss, arguing that the media credentials Arbogast possessed contained language that constituted a contract with a valid and enforceable arbitration agreement mandating that the case be resolved through binding arbitration in New York.

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Mary Perry Carmichael was an employee at Union Pacific Railroad Co. (UPRC).  In that capacity, she was being transported by Professional Transportation Inc. (PTI) in a van when it was hit by a vehicle driven by Dwayne Bell. Carmichael filed a lawsuit against UPRC, PTI and Bell; the suits against UPRC and PTI were dismissed.  Carmichael settled with Bell for $20,000, the maximum liability coverage under his auto insurance policy.

Carmichael also filed a declaratory judgment suit in chancery against PTI, UPRC and ACE American Insurance Co., PTI’s insurer, alleging that PTI was legally responsible for her injury because it chose not to carry the statutory mandated amount of insurance in violation of Section 8-101(c) of the Illinois Vehicle Code.

PTI argued that Section 8-101(c) provided no civil remedy for such a violation and moved to dismiss on this basis. The trial court found that the statute implied a private right of action and denied the motion. PTI also filed a counterclaim for declaratory judgment, seeking Section 8-101(c) to be declared unconstitutional, but this was dismissed.

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Jefferson City Retirement LLC (“JCR”) appealed from the circuit court’s judgment in favor of Twehous Excavating Inc. on its claims for breach of contract and quantum meruit. JCR contended that the court erred in granting Twehous’s relief on both claims because the claims were mutually exclusive and inconsistent as a matter of law.

However, the Missouri Appellate Court affirmed the judgment, stating that the claims are not mutually exclusive.

In 2013, JCR began building a retirement and assisted living community on property it owned in Jefferson City, Mo. JCR hired Omni Construction Co. Inc. as the general contractor on the project. Omni entered into a subcontract agreement with Twehous to provide excavation work under Omni’s direction.

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The issue in this case was whether there was a material breach under Illinois contract law as to American Guardian Holdings or AGH. AGH claimed it was excused from having to pay the final installments totaling $11 million for Steven Freedman’s shares in AGH because it was alleged that Freedman breached restrictive covenants in a settlement agreement.

When AGH agreed to redeem Freedman’s shares in AGH, it insisted on non-competition, non-solicitation and non-interference covenants to block Freedman, his son Max and any of their businesses from competing against AGH in selling “vehicle service contracts” or “extended warranties” through auto dealers.

Freedman’s other businesses included a brokerage that provided policies to owners of recreational vehicles, plus a personal-and-commercial-lines insurance agency called American Integrity Insurance Solutions, or AIIS, which was run by Freedman’s son, Max.

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Union Tank Car Co. relied on business records of third parties without any testimony from employees of those other companies to quantify damages caused by a breach of lease for 47 railcars.

An appeal was taken to the Illinois Appellate Court from a $1.27 million judgment entered in a Cook County bench trial. NuDevco Partners guaranteed the lease and argued that the trial court was wrong in ruling that Union Tank satisfied the requirement for the business records exception to the hearsay rule. NuDevco also claimed that the best-evidence-rule barred testimony about Union Tank’s wire transfers in payments to third parties.

The tankers were for shipping petroleum. The lessee, a subsidiary company of NuDevco, stopped paying rent and shipped the tankers back to Union Tank. To prove up freight, switching and storing charges, Union Tank presented invoices from its vendors, plus testimony from its director of fleet repair and the general manager of the lease division about receipts and payment of the bills.

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Daniel and Rachel Brenner purchased four works of art from Evelyn Statsinger in the 1950s and 1960s. The artworks were displayed in the Brenner home continuously through the time of Daniel’s death in 1977 and Rachel’s death in 1990. The Brenner children, Ariel and Jonathan Brenner, inherited the artwork.

When Jonathan died in 2010, he died without a will. His widow, Terry Brenner, was his sole heir.

The paintings were given back to Evelyn Statsinger in 1996. The transfer took place with Jonathan, Terry, their daughter, Statsinger and Statsinger’s husband being present.

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Noncompete agreements have always been controversial for the way they intend to or unintentionally restrict employees from gaining employment after leaving a job where a noncompete agreement was signed. In 2017, the Illinois General Assembly addressed concerns about noncompete clauses found in low-wage employees. Effective January 2017, the Illinois Right to Work Act prohibits private-sector employers from entering into noncompete agreements with low-wage employees, rendering such agreements facially illegal and void.

This Illinois law is similar to other states that have passed legislation that also limits the employer’s ability to restrict low-wage employees in noncompete contracts in the private-sector.

For example, in the last couple of years, Alabama, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington have passed laws that restrict the enforceability of noncompete agreements. Other states, including New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation that mirrors restrictions in enforceability of noncompete agreements.

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A breach of lease case resulted in a $278,198 default judgment, which was Count II of a Complaint brought by A.L. Dougherty Real Estate and Phyllis K. Dougherty. The complaint was filed against Cube Global LLC and March Fasteners Inc.  The complaint alleged that Cube Global was liable as March’s alter ego.

A bench trial was held.  The plaintiff presented evidence that Cube Global, which was incorporated while the lease case was pending, wound up with all of March Fastener’s assets and customers.

With the underlying decree boosted by fees, costs and interest, the judgment against Cube Global was $676,222. The judgment was against Su Chin Tsai, whose 16-year-old daughter was listed as Cube’s incorporator, and it totaled $435,584.

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Doug Miller owned two companies in Indiana:  E.T. Products, which blended and sold fuel-additive products, and Petroleum Solutions, which blended and sold lubricant products.

Petroleum Solutions also supplied a few customers with fuel additives from E.T. Products.

In January 2011, a group of investors led by Tom Blakemore purchased E.T. Products. As part of the sale, Miller and his son, Tracy, signed essentially identical non-competition agreements.

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The 1st District Appellate Court has reversed in part, vacated in part and remanded a decision by a Cook County judge in a case involving the use of trust money and investments.

Arie Zweig was the trustee of the Arie Zweig Self Declaration of Trust dated June 28, 1990. He used $2 million from the trust for an equity investment in a partnership supporting an ambulatory surgical center called Bedford Med. Bedford Med was operated by Bedford Med LLC. He said he was induced to invest by Nadar Bozorgi, Mandan Garahati and Guita Bozorgi Griffiths, acting as the Bozorgi Limited Partnership.

Zweig claimed that the Bozorgi defendants represented to him that the value of the Bedford Med operation was appraised at $21 million and that permanent financing had been secured. Zweig also claimed that the Bozorgi defendants maintained that they invested more than $5 million in the project, that the real estate had been already leased or was about to be finalized and that the investment would be used as equity and for working capital, generating an annual profit of 15-20%.

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