Shareholder Disputes

Court Rules Quantum Meruit Is Appropriate Standard in Dispute Between Former Law Partners

December 1, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

As Chicago corporate dispute lawyers, we were interested to see a ruling in a dispute between former law partners. In Bernstein and Grazian, P.C. v. Grazian and Volpe, P.C., No. 1-09-0149 (Ill. 1st June 25, 2010), both firms, and the individual partners, accused each other of breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty in a dispute about how to allocate payment on cases that were pending during the breakup of their first firm. At trial, the trial court found no breach of any duty. It also found that quantum meruit was the correct standard to apply and awarded Bernstein 10 percent of attorney fees generated from those cases by Grazian and Volpe. Both Bernstein and Grazian appealed this ruling, and the First District Court of Appeal made no changes except to vacate the 10 percent fees awarded to Bernstein.

Isadore Bernstein hired John Grazian in the 1990s as an independent contractor to Bernstein’s law practice. They eventually formed the law firm of Bernstein & Grazian, P.C., which focused its practice on personal injury and workers’ compensation cases. Bernstein was president and 70 percent owner, who provided the office, cases and money; Grazian was a salaried employee and vice president. They later hired Richard Volpe as an employee to handle workers’ compensation cases. In January of 2003, they agreed to change the firm’s structure and compensation scheme. The agreement said the three would split the office overhead equally. Bernstein and Volpe were to split expenses of workers’ compensation cases equally and split the fees equally. Similarly, Bernstein and Grazian were to equally split expenses and fees for personal injury cases.

In 2005, Grazian and Volpe decided to leave and form their own firm. The three attorneys agreed that Grazian & Volpe would take over Bernstein & Grazian’s open cases, but they disagreed on how they were to split the fees. Bernstein testified that he was promised 50 percent of the coming fees, but Grazian testified that he offered, and Bernstein accepted, only one-third of the fees. They also disagreed about whether they intended to file forms to substitute attorneys in the open cases before there was a formal separation and exit agreement. Bernstein and his firm sued Grazian, Volpe and their firm, alleging breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty and demanding an accounting; defendants filed a counterclaim for breach of fiduciary duty.

At a bench trial, the court dismissed every claim but breach of contract. It found that the agreement to dissolve the firm was the controlling contract. But since that document was silent on compensation, the court found that Bernstein should receive compensation under quantum meruit — that is, he should be paid according to the value of his actual services. Noting that it was difficult to determine this from the record, the trial court nonetheless awarded Bernstein 10 percent of the fees. Bernstein and Grazian appealed. Volpe is not a party to the appeal. Because Bernstein died during the pendency of the case, his estate was the appellant.

The appeals court started by dismissing Bernstein’s entire appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Bernstein filed in trial court to dismiss his appeal about two months after filing it. This was granted. About six weeks later, he moved in the appeals court to vacate that dismissal and reinstate the appeal, saying his attorney had made a mistake. This was granted as well. But according to the First, it had no authority to grant that motion, because an order dismissing an appeal is final under Physicians Insurance Exchange v. Jennings, 316 Ill. App. 3d 443, 456 (2000) and Rickard v. Pozdal, 31 Ill. App. 3d 542 (1975). Thus, Bernstein’s entire appeal was dismissed.

On cross-appeal, Grazian argued that the trial court was improper in finding no breach of fiduciary duty by Bernstein. Bernstein had formed a separate law firm in 2004, after the revenue-splitting agreement but before Grazian & Volpe was formed. Isadore M. Bernstein & Associates P.C. (IMB) existed to refer medical malpractice claims to other attorneys. Bernstein bought television advertisement time for both firms, but claimed he paid for the IMB commercial himself. Grazian claimed he had never been told about IMB and its advertisements. The commercials resulted in many new inquiries for both firms, but Bernstein claimed he did not spend a lot of extra time or firm resources on IMB-related work. Grazian disagreed, testifying that this cost the firm resources but did not generate income for him or Volpe, and caused Bernstein’s fee income to drop dramatically. This was the basis for the breach of fiduciary duty claim.

The First did not accept Grazian’s argument. The standard for overturning the trial court was “the manifest weight of the evidence,” it noted — and much of the evidence is unclear because Bernstein and Grazian had sharply conflicting accounts of this situation. What evidence there is does not lead to a conclusion that Bernstein clearly breached his fiduciary duty, the court said. Thus, it could not find that the trial court’s finding on fiduciary duty was against the manifest weight of the evidence.

Grazian had more luck with his argument that while quantum meruit was proper, it should have led to an award of nothing rather than of 10 percent of the attorney fees, because Bernstein provided no evidence required for recovery. Under caselaw including Hayes Mechanical, Inc. v. First Industrial, L.P., 351 Ill. App. 3d 1, 9 (2004), the burden is on Bernstein to show that he provided services of reasonable value to the defendants, and at least some evidence to prove that value. The First found that Bernstein had never provided any such evidence; testimony at trial showed that he did not do several major duties of an attorney, such as going to court, on those cases. In fact, he admitted that his fee generation dropped sharply. Having done “something” is not enough by itself to support a quantum meruit award, the First wrote. Therefore, it vacated the trial court’s 10 percent award to Bernstein.

Fifth District Court of Appeal Declines to Compel Arbitration in Shareholder Derivative Claim

October 26, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

Our Aurora, Ill. shareholder derivative claim lawyers were interested to see an appellate case that examined whether a limited liability corporation can be a party to a case brought under its own operating agreement. In Trover v. 419 OCR Inc. et al., No. 5-09-0145 (Ill. 5th, January 12, 2010), Joseph Trover sued 419 OCR Inc., O’Fallon Development Group LLC, Mark Halloran and Steve Macaluso, alleging a variety of shareholder complaints and fraud claims over a real estate deal that had gone sour. Trover, individually and as the trustee of a trust in his name, was part of a limited liability company called the Far Oaks Development Group. Other members of Far Oaks were defendants Halloran and Macaluso as well as non-defendant Garrett Reuter. Far Oaks owned land around a golf course that the members wished to develop. Reuter, Halloran and Trover also were part of a business called Far Oaks Golf Club, LLC.

In 2005, members of FODG agreed to sell and assign the company’s interest in the land to 419 OCR Inc., which was owned by Halloran and Macaluso, in order to gain a tax advantage. Trover claims he relied on the defendants and the advice of an attorney when he agreed to this. Halloran and Macaluso allegedly made an oral promise to pay the Golf Club the price of land to be sold, as well as a sum to be determined. Trover claims this was supposed to be put into writing. However, it was not included in the contract that transferred the land to 419 OCR, and it was never put into writing in other ways.

Halloran and Macaluso then proceeded to develop the land, sell lots and make a profit. Part of the interest in the land was transferred to another business called the O’Fallon Development Group. Trover’s lawsuit claims that FODG never received any money based on that land sale. Count I alleged breach of the oral contract against 419 OCR; Count II alleged breach of contract against the O’Fallon Group, which assumed obligations under the contract because of unity of ownership. Count III was a shareholder derivative action brought by Trover on behalf of FODG, alleging breach of fiduciary duty and corporate waste by Macaluso and Halloran. Count IV was a similar shareholder derivative action, brought by the Golf Club against Halloran only. Count V alleged fraud by Halloran and Macaluso individually, accusing them of making false representations when they said the sale price of the land would be paid back to the Golf Club.

After the lawsuit was filed, the defendants filed a motion to compel arbitration as required by the broadly worded operating agreements behind FODG and the Golf Club. The trial court denied this motion, and the defendants filed the interlocutory appeal that went before the Fifth District.

The appeals court upheld the trial court’s decision on four of the five counts. The transfer of the land from FODG to 419 OCR was within the scope of the operating agreements, the court found, but 419 OCR and O’Fallon were not parties to that agreement. Illinois law does not allow courts to compel arbitration among entities that were not parties to the arbitration agreement, the court wrote. Thus the trial court was correct to deny arbitration as to Counts I and II.

Counts III and IV are shareholder derivative actions, the court wrote, so compelling arbitration would require a finding that an LLC is a party to the agreement that creates itself. This is an issue of first impression in Illinois, the court noted. Relying on language in the Illinois Limited Liability Company Act, the court found that LLCs are not parties to their own agreements, because “A limited liability company is a legal entity distinct from its members.” The operating agreement specifies that it is between the signers, and the signers did not indicate that they were signing on behalf of either LLC in the case. And the agreement specifically states what actions members must take to legally bind the LLC. That shows that members knew how to do so but did not. Thus, the appeals court upheld the trial court on Counts III and IV as well.

The defendants were luckier with Count V, which named Halloran and Macaluso as individuals. Because both Halloran and the plaintiff signed the operating agreement with the arbitration clause, the court wrote, they are bound by it. Macaluso did not sign the original operating agreement, but he did buy 100 shares of each LLC after the fact. That makes him a member under the Illinois LLC Act, the court wrote, and binds him to everything in the agreement. Thus, he has the right to compel arbitration. For all of those reasons, the appeals court reversed the trial court as to Count V but upheld on the other counts, and sent the case back to trial.

Illinois Securities Law Statute of Limitation Does Not Apply to Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claim

September 28, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

Our Chicago business litigation lawyers were interested in a recent decision from the First District Court of Appeal. Carpenter et al. v. Exelon Enterprises Company, No. 1-09-1222 (Ill. 1st March 18, 2010) posed a certified question to the court: Does the three-year statute of limitations established by the Illinois Securities Law apply to a claim that a majority shareholder breached its fiduciary duty to minority shareholders? In this case, the First decided that it does not, allowing Timothy Carpenter and seven co-plaintiffs to pursue a claim under a more generous five-year statute of limitations under the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure. Their victory in this interlocutory appeal allows them to continue their claim at the trial court level.

The plaintiffs all held minority shares of InfraSource, Inc., a Delaware corporation. The majority shareholder at 97% was Exelon, a Pennsylvania corporation. In 2003, Exelon created a new company for the purpose of divesting its interest in InfraSource, which allowed it to merge InfraSource with the new company. The resulting corporation sold some of its (formerly InfraSource’s) assets and business units to Exelon and others to GFI Energy Ventures, an independent third party. InfraSource would continue as a company, but the former minority shareholders were paid a pro-rated share of the proceeds. In 2007, the plaintiffs sued Exelon, alleging that it abused its power as majority shareholder. They accused Exelon of structuring the transaction in a way that did not adequately compensate them for the market value of their shares.

A second amended complaint said Exelon sold itself the InfraSource assets at an artificially low price and awarded itself preferred stock. It alleged causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty, civil conspiracy, and, against Exelon’s parent company, aiding and abetting those actions. Exelon moved to dismiss the second complaint based on the three-year statute of limitations in the Illinois Securities Law. The trial court denied this, finding that the five-year statute of limitations applied. However, it stayed further proceedings until the instant interlocutory appeal had been decided, answering the question of which statute of limitations is correct.

The First District started its analysis by examining the statue of limitations portion of the Illinois Securities Law. That language says plaintiffs have three years from the date of the relevant sale to bring claims under the Act, or on matters for which the Act grants relief. Plaintiffs specifically stated their claim under Delaware law in order to distance themselves from this statute of limitations, but Exelon argued that the statute still applies under the language allowing its use for matters for which the Act grants relief, and cited two cases in support. The plaintiffs countered that Illinois courts found that because the Act is modeled after federal securities laws, courts should look at how those laws are interpreted for guidance in interpreting the Act. Tirapelli v. Advanced Equities, Inc., 351 Ill. App. 3d 450, 455 (2004).

The First rejected both lines of case law, saying that the decision “actually depends on the resolution of a straightforward and fundamental question of statutory construction.” The relevant portion of the Illinois Securities Law gives any party in interest the right to bring legal action to enforce compliance or stop a violation. Exelon relies on that language to place the plaintiffs’ complaint under the Act, the court wrote, but incorrectly. When the Legislature added this language to the Act, it explicitly said it was trying to give Illinois security holders the right to stop illegal acts. It included the right to sue for rescission, the court said, but only to enforce the remedy the law provides. In fact, Guy v. Duff & Phelps, Inc., 628 F. Supp. 252 (N.D. Ill. 1985) explicitly examined whether the law gives a retrospective right of rescission to securities sellers and concluded that it should not be interpreted that way.

The First agreed, saying another reading would make other sections of the law irrelevant. It then dismissed arguments based on the Seventh Circuit’s finding in Klein v. George G. Kerasotes Corp., 500 F.3d 669 (7th Cir. 2007), saying the arguments that led to its contradictory conclusion did not apply, for all of the reasons discussed above. Because there is no retrospective right of rescission in the Act, the First said, the plaintiffs are not seeking relief on any matter for which the Act grants relief. Nor, as noted earlier, are they seeking relief under the Act itself. For that reason, the three-year statute of limitations provided by the Act does not apply, the court concluded. It answered the certified question posed by the trial court in the negative, essentially upholding that court’s decision, and remanded it for further proceedings.

Investors May Not Go Forward With Flawed Fraud Claim, Seventh Circuit Rules

September 8, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

Our Illinois class action attorneys recently noted a Seventh Circuit decision ending a class-action case in the difficult realm of securities fraud. In Re Guidant Corporation, No. 08-2429 (7th Cir. Oct. 21, 2009), is a securities class action stemming from allegedly misleading statements Guidant Corp. made about its implanted defibrillators. A design flaw with certain lines of defibrillators was discovered in February of 2002, and by April, Guidant had corrected the problem in all of the new devices it made. However, the problem remained in machines already made, and Guidant failed to recall them or warn the public. All in all, Guidant knew in 2002 of at least 25 reports of short-circuiting from the older defibrillators. More reports emerged later.

Two years after this redesign, Guidant entered into merger talks with Johnson & Johnson. As part of these negotiations, it issued a press release expressing confidence about its growth prospects in the implanted defibrillator market. In their claim, plaintiffs said this was false and misleading because Guidant knew it still had liability for the Ventak defibrillators. Subsequent press releases on the merger also omitted this information, as were three merger-related forms Guidant filed with the SEC. However, in March of 2005, a young man died after his Guidant defibrillator short-circuited. Guidant issued several other SEC filings and press releases without disclosing this before it finally sent a letter to doctors in May of 2005 disclosing reported problems, an act prompted by an article about to be published in the New York Times.

The FDA recalled the defibrillators the next month, and Guidant’s stock dropped immediately. It dropped further when Johnson & Johnson announced that it was reconsidering the merger. All in all, the stock fluctuated between $63 a share and $80 a share until Guidant was purchased by Boston Scientific. The instant case is a consolidated class action filed against Guidant and eleven officers and directors as a result of these drops. In addition to alleging that all defendants made false and misleading statements about the company and omitted material information from their statements, it alleged that the individual defendants used insider knowledge and the approval of the Johnson & Johnson merger to sell stock during the period at issue.

Over the course of pre-trial motions, the plaintiffs attempted to amend their complaint at least three times, twice because of new information revealed in related product liability cases. At some point, Guidant moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. The claims were brought under the Securities Exchange Act, which requires heightened pleading standards for plaintiffs alleging securities fraud. Specifically, the court found that the plaintiffs’ pleadings were not particular enough and failed to include facts showing that defendants knowingly and with malice misled investors. It dismissed the case with prejudice. It also declined to reconsider based on new evidence from a products liability case, and declined a motion to amend their complaint based on the same evidence. The plaintiffs appealed all three decisions.

In its analysis, the Seventh started by noting that plaintiffs had ample time to make changes to their complaint. In addition to the consolidated complaint from individual claims, it allowed an amendment at the start to change the class period. Plaintiffs notified the court twice of new evidence from other cases, but failed to amend their complaint with that evidence. The Seventh found that this was ample time for plaintiffs to amend their complaint to meet the admittedly strict standards provided for securities cases by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

It then moved to the trial court’s denial of reconsideration of the dismissal. The plaintiffs claimed that it should have been reconsidered because they had new evidence from product liability cases, a standard ground for reconsideration. They acknowledged that those facts were older, but said the trial court stymied them by refusing to lift a stay of discovery. The Seventh found this unpersuasive, saying the trial court could have ruled either way without abusing its discretion. The trial court must have assessed the new evidence, it wrote, and decided that a new amended complaint would still have lacked the necessary specific facts and evidence of scienter. And the plaintiffs could have entered the new evidence into the record earlier. Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion by denying reconsideration. For the same reasons, it was also not an abuse of discretion to deny the motion to amend, the Seventh said. Thus, all of the district court’s rulings were affirmed.

Treasurer Cannot Commit Resources of Family Business Without Board Authorization, Court Finds

September 7, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

As Illinois closely held business dispute attorneys, we read with interest an appellate decision in a dispute over the extent to which a company officer can act without the board’s approval. In Fritzsche v. LaPlante, No. 2-09-0329 (Ill. 2nd March 2010), the “rogue” officer was M. Christine Rock, the secretary/treasurer for family business Fritzsche Industrial Park, Inc. (FIP), which leases real estate at an industrial park in Lakemoor, Ill. Rock also had power of attorney for her father, Herbert Fritzsche, and those two roles allowed her to lease property to Gregory LaPlante, her longtime live-in boyfriend. Separately, Rock also signed a promissory note to Gerald Shaver as payment for work he had done for FIP. This led to a lawsuit by other family members and corporate members, who alleged that she acted without authorization from the board and that the note and lease were invalid.

FIP was incorporated in 2005, although the family had owned the property for decades before. The other corporate officers were Herbert Fritzsche, president, and Scot Fritzsche, vice president and son of Herbert Fritzsche. Shares of stock were divided among the officers and other sons, daughters and grandchildren, with Herbert Fritzsche getting 68 percent. In July of 2006, Herbert Fritzsche suffered a brain hemorrhage, which affected his health and may have compromised his mental capacity. One result of this was that Rock and LaPlante moved into Herbert Fritzsche’s home after he moved in with another sibling. On the first day of August, Rock signed the lease to LaPlante, which gave him 16 properties at Fritzsche Industrial Park and 10 more owned by Herbert Fritzsche individually. LaPlante was to pay rent in the amount of the property taxes, plus 10 percent of his income, although it was not clear what that income referred to.

A week later, on August 8, Rock signed the promissory note to Shaver in exchange for work done on the property, possibly through his trucking and excavating business. It obligated FIP and Park National Bank, trustee of Herbert Fritzsche’s properties, to pay $450,000 by putting a lien on the properties they owned. Park National Bank did not sign. Three months later, Herbert Fritzsche, FIP, Park National Bank and First Midwest Bank, a trustee for some FIP properties, sued Rock and LaPlante, alleging Rock was not authorized to commit the company’s or her father’s resources. The complaint alleged that Rock was suspected of stealing rents from FIP to pay her personal expenses and refused to provide documentation of rental income, which led to a shareholder decision to remove her as secretary/treasurer in May of that year. After his illness, Herbert also allegedly revoked her power of attorney. Therefore, plaintiffs alleged, Rock had no authority to enter into the lease or the note, and they were invalid. They also claimed the rental agreement was too vague to be enforced.

During the next two years, discovery in the case moved very slowly, possibly because Rock and LaPlante also faced criminal prosecution for theft, conspiracy and financial exploitation of an elderly person. In December of 2008, the plaintiffs moved for summary judgment. They argued that even if Rock was not properly removed as power of attorney and a corporate officer, Illinois law does not allow her to enter into the lease or the note without the board’s approval. They also argued that FIP’s bylaws required approval of the note because it was a form of debt. Defendants responded that the board knew about the lease through e-mails sent among the members, and that no board approval was necessary for the lease and the note because Rock was exercising Herbert’s executive authority through the POA, and because many properties were owned by individual family members rather than the board. After oral arguments, the board granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, saying Rock did not have the authority to act unilaterally as a matter of law. This appeal followed.

Because it was an appeal of a summary judgment order, the Second noted, it had only to decide whether there were genuine issues of material fact to try. Nonetheless, it found that the defendants failed to meet that standard. Under common law, the court said, the highest officer of a corporation must still get board approval to make contracts, especially ones that are unusual or extraordinary. The lease is such an unusual contract, it wrote, because it involved no trustees for the properties and provided LaPlante with the land for little or nothing. Rock also needed board approval for the lease under the Illinois Business Corporation Act, which requires corporate formalities for transactions involving “substantially all” the corporation’s assets. The lease covered all of the property in the industrial park, the court noted, thus making it impossible for FIP to continue its business.

The court came to similar conclusions about the note. However, in this case, the main support for voiding the note came from FIP’s bylaws. Those bylaws say loans and other forms of indebtedness must be authorized by a board resolution. No such resolution exists, the court said, but the note clearly puts a $450,000 lien on FIP. The appeals court noted that the Business Corporations Act requires board approval for actions outside the ordinary course of business, but believed that the bylaws argument was stronger. Thus, the appeals court upheld the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the plaintiffs.

Supreme Court Upholds Arm’s Length Standard for Setting Fees for Mutual Fund

May 29, 2010 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

Our Chicago business law lawyers were very interested in a recent Supreme Court decision upholding an established standard for determining when a mutual fund’s investment advisor has breached his or her fiduciary duty to shareholders. In Jones et al. v. Harris Associates L.P., No. 08-586 (March 30, 2010), three shareholders in the Oakmark family of mutual funds sued the funds’ investment manager, Harris Associates. They alleged that Harris charged the Oakmark funds twice as much as it did other funds, but did the same work. The situation was not challenged by the funds’ board members because they were all appointed by Harris Associates, the shareholders claimed. As a result, they said, the Oakmark funds paid $37 million to $58 million more than other funds for the services of Harris Associates in just one year.

Mutual funds typically use outside investment advisors to manage all of their affairs, including picking board members. Because this creates the potential for abuse, Congress enacted the Investment Company Act of 1940 to protect mutual fund shareholders. Among other things, that act creates a fiduciary duty for investment advisors with respect to their compensation, and allows shareholders to sue if that duty was breached. The plaintiff shareholders in this case sued Harris Associates in Chicago federal court for a breach of that fiduciary duty, alleging that it charged fees disproportionate to the services rendered and that were not equivalent to fees negotiated at arm’s length. Harris Associates successfully moved for summary judgment. The trial court, applying the standard laid down in Gartenberg v. Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Inc., 694 F. 2d 923 (CA2 1982), held that there was no evidence that the fees were outside a range that could have been produced by arm’s length negotiations.

Plaintiffs appealed to the Seventh Circuit, where their claim still failed, but for different reasons. The Seventh rejected the Gartenberg standard, saying it relied too little on markets. Instead, the panel applied a standard from trust law, saying a trustee is free to negotiate any compensation that the trust is willing to pay. Similarly, a fiduciary’s compensation need not be limited by an arbitrary cap, the panel wrote. It suggested that market forces would help keep fees reasonable and noted that comparing fees for other Harris Associates clients is unfair because different clients require different amounts of work. An investment advisor’s compensation would only be subject to interference, the Seventh wrote, if the amount was so out of the ordinary that observers might think “that deceit must have occurred, or that the persons responsible for decision have abdicated.”
After the Seventh denied an en banc rehearing, with a dissent by Judge Posner, the Supreme Court took up the case to resolve a split in the circuits over the standards used to judge breaches of the Investment Company Act. In its unanimous opinion, the court found that Gartenberg was indeed the correct standard, reversing the Seventh Circuit. That standard has been adopted by other federal appeals courts, the high court noted, as well as by the SEC. The opinion, authored by Justice Alito, quoted at length from the Second Circuit’s decision in Gartenberg, which among other things said that “[t]o be guilty of a violation of [the Act], … the adviser-manager must charge a fee that is so disproportionately large that it bears no reasonable relationship to the services rendered and could not have been the product of arm’s-length bargaining.” This approach is consistent with other protections in the Act and the Act’s role in federal regulations.

The Seventh Circuit erred by focusing almost entirely on full disclosure to determine a breach of fiduciary duty, the Supreme Court wrote. Courts should take a more nuanced look, giving deference to well-informed, independent board decisions and avoiding over-reliance on market comparisons. Thus, the court vacated the Seventh Circuit’s decision and sent the case back to trial court.

Second District Reverses Trial Court’s Judicial Determination of Fair Market Value in Shareholder Dispute

September 23, 2009 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

As Chicago shareholder dispute attorneys, we noted with interest a recent decision on calculating fair market value of stock owned by a dissenting shareholder. Brynwood Company v. Schweisberger, No. 02-06-1178, (Ill. 2nd Dist. July 23, 2009) pitted a corporation against its co-founder and majority shareholder. The Brynwood Company, which is now dissolved, was an Illinois C corporation organized in 1979. It existed only for the purpose of owning and administering an office building in Rockford, Ill. Stuart Schweisberger was a founder of Brynwood, the president, a member of the board of directors until 2000 and a tenant with an accounting firm in the building. He was also the accountant for Brynwood until 1994.

Schweisberger retired in 1996 with 26% of the company’s stock. In 1999 and 2000, the Brynwood board began to consider ways to change the corporation, including selling the building and dissolving the corporation. In 2001, Schweisberger negotiated with Brynwood to sell his shares, but negotiations ultimately faltered. In 2002, Brynwood notified Schweisberger that it had an offer to sell the building to a third party, but wanted to convert to an S corporation to avoid income tax liability instead and hold on to it for 10 more years. Schweisberger did not consent to the conversion, in part because it would require changes to his IRA. When Brynwood failed to get his consent, it held a meeting at which shareholders agreed to sell the building and dissolve the corporation.

The building was sold for $1.4 million, with $959,282 in capital gains. The mortgage of $353,080 was paid from the proceeds, and another $446,593 was paid in taxes, professional fees and other costs. A bit more than a week after the sale, Schweisberger filed a notice objecting to the sale and demanding payment of the “fair value” of his shares under the Illinois Business Corporation Act of 1983. When Brynwood dissolved, it estimated fair value of the shares at $30.08; Schweisberger estimated fair value at $66.31 and also demanded 6.75% interest, which was the former mortgage’s interest rate. In October, Schweisberger surrendered his shares in exchange for the $30.08 price plus a much lower interest rate based on the interest earned on the certificate of deposit holding the proceeds of the sale. However, in December of 2002, Brynwood filed for a judicial determination of the fair value of Schweisberger’s stock and interest due to him.

At trial, the basis for the difference between Schweisberger’s and Brynwood’s valuations became clear. Schweisberger testified as his own expert witness, saying he came to the $66.31 valuation by excluding the costs of capital gains taxes, fees and costs. Because he objected to the sale, he said, he thought his shares should be calculated without those costs. Brynwood’s expert, accountant Gary Randle, testified that the fair valuation should be calculated according to what each individual shareholder eventually received from the liquidation, which he put at $36.15 per share. He said if Schweisberger had actually received his requested $66.31 per share, other shareholders would have received about $25 a share. Another expert witness for Schweisberger, accountant Mark Patterson, testified that he believed the value could also be calculated as a “going concern,” cutting out the taxes, fees and costs from the sale.

Before and during trial, Brynwood objected to Patterson’s presence and testimony. It said Patterson was unqualified to give testimony because he had admittedly never valued this type of company before. It also contended that his testimony was nothing more than a definition of the legal term “fair value.” The court twice dismissed these objections.

The trial court found that Schweisberger timely exercised his right to dissent and that the board knew the sale would trigger taxes, fees and costs. Because of that, and because the only reason for the sale was the majority’s preference, it found that Schweisberger’s shares should be calculated without taking those costs into account. It also found that the interest rate should be the 6.75% interest Schweisberger had requested, giving rise to a share value of $60.68. This gave Schweisberger a judgment of $181,130.45. Brynwood appealed.

The Second District started by addressing Brynwood’s concerns at trial: that Patterson should not have been allowed to testify as an expert because he had never valued this type of company, and that admitting his testimony was an abuse of discretion because he was doing nothing more than interpreting the words “fair value.” The appeals court disagreed. Valuation is part of the business of accounting, it said, and experience in valuing a particular type of business is unnecessary. Furthermore, a review of Patterson’s testimony shows that it included reasons for his opinions, not just the definitions of terms. Thus, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony, the Second said.

Brynwood had more luck with its argument that the trial court’s valuation decision was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The company argued that by subtracting taxes, costs and fees, the court artificially inflated the value of Schweisberger’s shares at the expense of the majority of shareholders. The court agreed, saying that excluding those costs did not meet the Business Corporation Act’s goal of fair and equal treatment for all shareholders. Capital gains taxes and other costs are intrinsically tied to the value of a closely held real estate company like Brynwood, the court wrote, and thus to its stock’s value. This made the trial court’s decision against the manifest weight of the evidence. Thus, the appeals court overturned that decision and sent it back to trial court for a new determination of value, taking taxes, costs and fees into account.

Homeowners May Bring Derivative Claim Against Association’s Board of Directors, Appeals Court Rules

June 7, 2009 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

A group of Chicago condo owners may proceed with a derivative lawsuit against their homeowners’ association’s Board of Directors, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled. In Davis v. Dyson, No. 1-07-2927 (Ill. 1st Dec. 19, 2008), twelve condo owners sued individuals formerly on the board of directors after the board members failed to detect embezzlement by an outside property manager. Furthermore, the homeowners alleged, the former board members failed to get enough insurance or get an attorney’s advice on their duty to do so, resulting in losses and out-of-pocket costs of more than $800,000 after the embezzlement was detected.

The homeowner plaintiffs sued for breach of fiduciary duty under two counts — one derivative claim on behalf of the association and one claim as individual homeowners whose property values were allegedly harmed by the directors’ inaction. In response, board members argued that the homeowners lacked standing to sue in both claims — for the individual claim, because the property value claim did not constitute a separate and distinct harm to the individual homeowners. For the derivative claim, the board members argued that only the board itself may bring a derivative action against third parties. The trial court agreed and dismissed both claims; the homeowners appealed.

In its analysis, the appeals court pointed out that shareholders have an undisputed right to sue their own boards of directors; the question was whether they may file a derivative claim against third parties (in this case, the former directors). The court concluded that they could, pointing out that the right to file a derivative suit puts homeowners into the association’s shoes. This means that they are acting on behalf of the association, the opinion said, not usurping its undisputed right to sue third parties. The relevant section of the Illinois Condominium Property Act does not prevent derivative claims by homeowners, the court wrote, so it saw no reason to deviate from caselaw on derivative actions.

Appeals Court Rules Small Business Cannot Sue Bank Over Embezzlement

January 8, 2009 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

A small business may not sue a bank for allowing a minority shareholder to embezzle, the Illinois Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. In Time Savers, Inc. v. LaSalle Bank, N.A., 02-06-0198 (Feb. 28, 2007), the company had sued its bank for breach of contract, common-law fraud, conspiracy to defraud, aiding and abetting and violating the Illinois Fiduciary Obligations Act.

The case stems from bad loans taken out by the minority shareholder in construction and maintenance equipment supplier Time Savers (TSI), Stephen Harrison. He owned 20% of the company and shareholder Lawrence Kozlicki owned the remaining 80%. Harrison also owned another business, RDSJH Equipment Venture, that does the same kind of equipment supply business. Kozlicki has no ownership interest in RDSJH, but the two companies did business together. Between 1997 and 2001, Harrison, through TSI, refinanced existing loans and took out new ones with LaSalle Bank seven times. With these loans, Harrison financed new equipment purchases for RDSJH; the equipment was then rented to TSI, allowing RDSJH to enrich itself at TSI’s expense.

Kozlicki and TSI contended that LaSalle suspected or knew that the loans were for Harrison’s personal benefit, but failed to alert Kozlicki or investigate further. TSI pointed to various documents and communications, as well as the fact that some funds were deposited into an RDSJH account. The complaint at issue in this appeal is the third amended complaint by TSI; the company voluntarily dismissed the original complaint and the DuPage County trial court dismissed the first, second and third amended complaints at LaSalle’s request. (The bank also moved for sanctions after the third amended complaint was dismissed.) The final dismissal is the subject of this appeal.

Using Forensic Accountants and Certified Fraud Examiners in Shareholder, Business, Divorce and Commerical Litigation

July 23, 2008 | Peter S. Lubin and James V. DiTommaso

As Chicago business, shareholder rights and commercial law litigators, we frequently handle cases involving allegations of business fraud or financial mismanagement, often as part of complex business dispute, that require significant expertise in financial issues. When handling a divorce involving a family business or other closely held company, we also sometimes find we need an expert’s help properly valuing the business, so we can help our clients get the most equitable possible distribution of marital property.

Our Chicago, Oak Brook, Wheaton and Naperville business trial attorneys have handled many complex business and commecial law litigation matters which have involved presenting or cross-examining accounting witnesses.

While we’re confident in our legal skills, these situations call for specialized financial skills. To give our clients the best possible representation in business, shareholder and other commercial disputes, we sometimes retain a forensic accountant or fraud examiner. Both of these jobs are twofold: They help attorneys and their clients understand the complex financial aspects of their cases, and they may also be called to testify as expert witnesses. A forensic accountant’s job is to examine a person or corporation’s accounts “cold,” from the outside; the subject isn’t generally expected to cooperate. Similarly, a fraud examiner delves deep into a company’s finances, looking for the source of anything that seems inconsistent or suspicious. Both can serve as expert witnesses who help establish the value of a business or testify to the existence of fraud.