Commercial Banking, Collections, and Bankruptcy

Record contained sufficient evidence to support jury’s $471,124 verdict in favor of plaintiff in action alleging that defendant breached terms of dealership agreement by forcing plaintiff to sell his dealership to third-party at below-market price. Terms of agreement precluded defendant from terminating without good cause agreement calling for defendant to supply plaintiff with dairy farming equipment for plaintiff’s resale to customers, and record showed that defendant essentially terminated agreement by telling plaintiff that it would reduce plaintiff’s sales territory to zero if it did not sell dealership to third-party. Moreover, defendant failed to establish good cause for seeking sale of dealership to third-party, and agreement did not allow defendant to seek sale of dealership based on belief that said sale might increase defendant’s profits.

Defendant-employer was entitled to judgment notwithstanding verdict in action alleging that defendant breached terms of compensation plan by improperly paying plaintiff-employee commission on computer maintenance and support services deal that was sold to defendant’s client, where defendant based commission on 2006 incentive plan. While plaintiff claimed that he was entitled to larger commission under terms of 2005 incentive plan, record showed that plaintiff did not close deal with client until March of 2006, and amendment to 2005 plan set December 25, 2005 deadline for deals to become final in order to qualify for commission under 2005 incentive plan. Ct. rejected plaintiff’s contention that 2005 plan remained effective until sometime in 2006 when 2006 plan became effective.

Dist. Ct. did not err in denying request of certain Liquidators for modification of injunction that had been entered in Commodity Futures Trading Commission and SEC proceedings that essentially froze defendant’s assets after defendant had defaulted on claims that he had defrauded certain investors, where injunction had been entered to determine true ownership of defendant’s assets. While Liquidators argued that injunction should be modified so as to permit release of certain funds to Liquidators because defendant no longer had control over his assets, denial of modification request was appropriate, since there had been no final determination that Liquidators were true owners of said funds and no determination as to how losses would be distributed among claimants to defendant’s funds.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff’s action seeking recovery of broker’s fee that plaintiff claimed it earned by providing services arising out of defendant’s purchase of business, where plaintiff had failed to comply with dictates of Illinois Business Broker’s Act, which requires that all broker agreements be in writing. While plaintiff contended that defendant had essentially waived any argument under said Act by failing to include it as affirmative defense in its answer, Dist. Ct. had authority to permit any untimely affirmative defense, where plaintiff did not suffer any prejudice in terms of ability to contest affirmative defense on its merits arising out of any delay in asserting said defense. Moreover, while Rule 8(c) requires that affirmative defense “must” be raised in answer to complaint, Rule 8(c) does not provide any consequence for delay in asserting affirmative defense.