Dent v. Constellation NewEnergy, Inc.
| Decision Date | 21 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 126795 |
| Citation | 2022 IL 126795,202 N.E.3d 248,460 Ill.Dec. 706 |
| Parties | Richard L. DENT et al., Appellees, v. CONSTELLATION NEWENERGY, INC., et al., Appellants. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
J. Timothy Eaton and Jonathan B. Amarilio, of Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, of Chicago, for appellants.
Paul G. Neilan, of Law Offices of Paul G. Neilan, P.C., of Highland Park, for appellees.
John J. Hamill and Pamela Begaj Loutos, of DLA Piper LLP (US), Sharmili Majmudar, of Women Employed, and Ameri Klafeta, of Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU, Inc., all of Chicago, Courtney Saleski and Danielle T. Morrison, of DLA Piper LLP (US), of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Sunu Chandy and Elizabeth Tang, of National Women's Law Center, of Washington D.C., for amici curiae Women Employed et al.
¶ 1 Petitioners, Richard L. Dent and RLD Resources, LLC (RLD), filed an Illinois Supreme Court Rule 224 (eff. Jan. 1, 2018) petition seeking disclosure from respondents, Constellation NewEnergy, Inc.; CNE Gas Supply, LLC; Constellation Energy Gas Choice, LLC; and Constellation NewEnergy-Gas Division, LLC. Petitioners sought the names and addresses of three unidentified individuals who might be responsible in damages to petitioners, alleging that those individuals publicized false and defamatory statements about Dent that caused respondents to terminate their contractual relationships with petitioners. The Cook County circuit court dismissed the petition with prejudice. The Appellate Court, First District, reversed and remanded. 2020 IL App (1st) 191652, 448 Ill.Dec. 73, 175 N.E.3d 742.
¶ 3 Petitioners were party to several energy supply and marketing contracts with respondents. Petitioners were independent contractors, and the contracts were terminable at will. On October 18, 2018, respondents informed petitioners that they were terminating the at-will consulting agreements with petitioners.
¶ 4 On March 18, 2019, petitioners filed a verified petition under Rule 224. The petition alleged as follows. On September 14, 2018, Grace Speights and Theo McKinney III, two attorneys representing respondents, visited Dent at RLD's offices. The attorneys told Dent that certain allegations had been made against him. The allegations arose from a Senior-Pro Tour golf outing sponsored by respondents in July 2018. Dent was a guest at a pregolf party at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois. A woman at the event alleged that Dent groped her. The same woman also alleged that, at a similar event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in June 2016, Dent told her she had "a butt like a sister." Dent asked who had made the allegations, but the attorneys refused to name her. Petitioners therefore identified the woman as "Person A."
¶ 5 The attorneys also told Dent that, at the same July 2018 golf outing, a gentleman observed Dent collecting his golf outing materials at the Marriott Hotel in Chicago. The gentleman described Dent as drunk and disorderly when picking up his materials. The attorneys refused to identify the gentleman, so the petition described him as "Person B."
¶ 6 At the September 14, 2018, meeting, Dent told the attorneys that the allegations against him were completely false. The attorneys informed Dent that respondents would be reviewing their contractual arrangements with petitioners in light of the allegations. On or about October 1, 2018, petitioners received a letter from respondents terminating all contracts between petitioners and respondents going forward.
¶ 7 The Rule 224 petition also included exhibit B, a letter respondents’ counsel sent to petitioners’ counsel on December 19, 2018, responding to petitioners’ claim that respondents had impugned Dent's name and reputation. The December 19, 2018, letter stated that Dent had been the subject of an investigation by a third party hired by respondents to investigate reports that Dent had engaged in "grossly inappropriate behavior during the 2016 and 2018 Pro-Am Tournament events." The letter stated that respondents’ attorneys met with Dent to allow Dent to provide his recollection of the events in question. The letter noted that Dent had denied the allegations but that the investigators determined that Dent's denials were not credible and that the reports accurately described behaviors that were in violation of respondents’ "code of business conduct, completely outside the norms of socially acceptable behavior, and demeaning to Constellation employees." The letter also stated that respondents had not disclosed the findings of the investigation to any third party, aside from privileged communications with respondents’ attorneys. The letter concluded that any claim that respondents had impugned Dent's name and reputation was frivolous, given respondents’ legal obligation to investigate the allegations and the protected nature of the findings of the investigation.
¶ 8 Petitioners’ Rule 224 petition alleged that respondents refused to identify the third party hired to investigate the claims against Dent, so the petition referred to the third party as "Person C." The petition asserted that, on information and belief, Person C investigated the claims made against Dent prior to respondents’ issuance of the October 1, 2018, termination notice. The petition also alleged that, on information and belief, Person C published or republished to respondents the statements of Person A and Person B concerning Dent.
¶ 9 The petition then alleged that the statements published by Persons A, B, and C were (1) made as statements of fact, (2) false, and (3) not privileged. The statements published by Persons A, B, and C imputed acts of moral turpitude and impugned Dent's character, reputation, and good name. Further, respondents admitted in the December 19, 2018, correspondence that the statements published by Persons A, B, and C concerning Dent were both the cause in fact and the proximate cause of respondents’ termination of all contractual relationships with petitioners. Petitioners alleged that Persons A, B, and C might be responsible in damages to them and that petitioners wished to engage in discovery for the sole purpose of ascertaining the identities and whereabouts of Persons A, B, and C. The discovery sought by petitioners was necessary because respondents refused to provide petitioners with the identities and addresses of Persons A, B, and C.
¶ 10 Respondents moved to dismiss the Rule 224 petition pursuant to section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure ( 735 ILCS 5/2-615 (West 2018) ). Respondents argued that the petition was substantially insufficient because the petition sought discovery in support of a prospective lawsuit for defamation but the allegedly defamatory statements were, as a matter of law, protected by qualified privilege. In addition, petitioners did not, and could not, allege facts sufficient to overcome that privilege. For that reason, the discovery sought by petitioners was not necessary to pursue a cognizable claim, as required under Rule 224.
¶ 11 The trial court dismissed the Rule 224 petition with prejudice. In issuing its ruling, the trial court sua sponte ruled that Rule 224 is satisfied when a petitioner has identified someone who may be sued. In this case, petitioners knew the identities of respondents and their attorneys, so petitioners had identified someone who may be sued. The trial court cited Low Cost Movers, Inc. v. Craigslist, Inc. , 2015 IL App (1st) 143955, 398 Ill.Dec. 926, 45 N.E.3d 357, in support of its ruling.
¶ 12 The court in Low Cost Movers held that a Rule 224 petition may be dismissed if the identity of a potential defendant is already known to the petitioner. Id. ¶ 16. The Low Cost Movers court explained that " Rule 224 is not intended to permit a party to engage in a wide-ranging, vague, and speculative quest to determine whether a cause of action actually exists." Id. ¶ 17. Nor could Rule 224 discovery continue "until the identity of the party that engaged in the ‘wrongdoing’ coincides with petitioner's causes of action." Id.
¶ 13 Based upon Low Cost Movers , the trial court stated that the respondents might be liable for damages to petitioners, so a Rule 224 petition was an inappropriate vehicle for petitioners to attempt to learn the names of other, unidentified individuals.
¶ 14 Petitioners filed a motion to reconsider the dismissal of their Rule 224 petition. Petitioners argued the trial court erred in finding that they knew the identity of a potential defendant. Petitioners noted that respondents were not the publishers of the allegedly defamatory statements about Dent. Rather, respondents were the third parties to whom Persons A, B, and C published their allegedly defamatory statements. Consequently, no cause of action for defamation could lie against respondents. In addition, no cause of action for breach of contract would lie against respondents because respondents could terminate at-will contracts for any reason. Consequently, any cause of action would lie solely against Persons A, B, and C. In contrast to the Low Cost Movers case, no one who engaged in the wrongful conduct alleged—the defamation of Dent—had been identified. The circuit court thus erred in dismissing the Rule 224 petition with prejudice.
¶ 15 The circuit court denied petitioners’ motion to reconsider. The circuit court stated that claims against respondents were not limited to those elaborated upon in the underlying petition. Further, the damages alleged in the petition were based upon the termination of contracts. The circuit court characterized the issue before it as whether petitioners had identified any of the persons or entities who may be the cause of those terminations. The circuit court stated that " Rule 224 has a specific, narrow purpose that allows a petitioner to obtain the identity of a potential defendant when the petitioner lacks knowledge of anyo...
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