Lahman v. Gould

• Court: Appellate Court of Illinois
• Writing for the Court: BRYANT; LYONS, P.J., and BURKE
• Citation: Lahman v. Gould, 82 Ill.App.2d 220, 226 N.E.2d 443 (Ill. App. 1967)
• Decision Date: 18 April 1967
• Docket Number: Gen. No. 50611
• Parties: John Harold LAHMAN, Plaintiff-Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. E. GOULD, W. E. Gould and Company and Harriet B. Gould, executor of will ofW. E. Gould, deceased, Defendants-Respondents-Appellees, Philip H. Mitchel, Master in Chancery, Respondent-Appellee.

Page 443

226 N.E.2d 443

82 Ill.App.2d 220

John Harold LAHMAN, Plaintiff-Petitioner-Appellant, v. W. E. GOULD, W. E. Gould and Company and Harriet B. Gould executor of will ofW. E. Gould, deceased Defendants-Respondents-Appellees Philip H. Mitchel, Master in Chancery, Respondent-Appellee.

Gen. No. 50611.

Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division.

April 18, 1967.

Rehearing Denied May 16, 1967.

Raymond Harkrider, Chicago, for appellant.

Winston, Strawn, Smith & Patterson, Chicago, Calvin Sawyier, Chicago, of counsel, for defendants-appellees.

Philip H. Mitchel, Chicago, for respondent-appellee.

BRYANT, Justice.

This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of Cook County which dismissed the plaintiff's complaint, awarded the sum of $34,086.00 to the defendants and assessed the sum of $40,956.70 in master's fees equally between the two parties. Plaintiff raises four issues on this appeal: (1) that the chancellor erred in refusing to allow him to file his amended and supplemental complaint; (2) in denying his petition to suppress the master's report; (3) in issuing a decree which dismissed the plaintiff's amended complaint for want of equity and which entered judgment against the plaintiff in the sum of $34,086.00 and assessed costs equally between the parties; and (4) in allowing master's fees in the sum of $40,956.70.

The evidence in this case shows that the plaintiff, John Harold Lahman, was engaged in making profits out of speculative business ventures, and that the defendant, the now-deceased W. E. Gould and his company, W. E. Gould and Company were engaged in the making and brokering of loans to high-risk business ventures such as the plaintiff dealt in. Beginning in 1945, Lahman commenced borrowing money at high interest rates (commissions charged by Gould averaged around 20% Per loan) from defendant, W. E. Gould and Company. On many of these ventures Lahman was making such profit that the high interest rates were a minor factor.

In February 1949, Lahman and one of his associates, Henry J. Brubaker, accepted a letter of intent to purchase a Navy Small Parts Plant at Rockdale, Illinois, from the War Assets Administrator, at a price of $875,000.00. The property consisted of approximately 26 acres, improved with buildings, containing about 700,000 square feet of space, which the plaintiff planned to lease for industrial use. In April 1949, plaintiff and Brubaker formed an Illinois corporation, Interlake Industries Corporation, hereinafter referred to as 'Interlake,' for the purpose of taking title to and possession of the property. Shortly after the formation of the corporation, Brubaker, because of illness, assigned to Lahman all of his right, title and interest in the letter of intent.

After June 1949, Gould and Company commenced to make substantial loans to Interlake, for which it received notes of Interlake. Interlake also picked up outstanding Lahman notes held by Gould and Company by the substitution of Interlake notes, thus in effect borrowing money on the very asset he was buying.

In 1950, Lahman and Interlake were in serious financial distress due to unfavorable economic conditions and, according to I ahman, a severe winter. Gould and Company held Lahman and Interlake notes and some Lahman 'NSF' checks. It became apparent that the only way in which Lahman could salvage anything was to find a purchaser of the stock of Interlake or of all of its assets. Attempts were made to find a buyer. On March 27, 1950 the property was offered to H. A. Karsten for $1,150,000.00, which offer was not accepted, and in May the stock was offered to Arnold Hartman for $1,000,000.00, out of which sum Lahman was to pay $100,000.00 of notes payable. This offer also was not accepted. On May 29, 1950, Lahman and defendant W. E. Gould entered into a contract on behalf of Gould's company whereby Lahman completely parted with his interest in Interlake for a price of $960,000.00. The master found that this agreement 'was an arms length business deal between two competent businessmen, each seeking to salvage as much as they could in the face of the prospect of a default on a land purchase contract' which indeed it was.

Subsequent to the sale of the Interlake stock on May 29, 1950 the defendants refused to lend Lahman any more money. They suggested that Lahman organize a corporation, J. H. Lahman, Inc., which he did. The apparent purpose for organizing this corporation was to avoid the effect of the usury law. Lahman had pledged 55.2 shares of Frantz Manufacturing Company stock with the First National Bank of Chicago as security for a loan of $21,000.00. The Frantz stock had been the basis of Lahman's financial power; the company was a family-owned manufacturing company in which Lahman was not only a substantial stockholder but was also an officer drawing a salary of $40,000.00 per year. In July 1950, Lahman borrowed $21,000.00 through J. H. Lahman, Inc. from the defendants to pay off the First National Bank loan. Lahman, Inc. was charged a commission of $5,000.00 on this transaction by the defendants who took as collateral security the 55.2 shares of Frantz that had been held by the First National Bank. In November of the same year Lahman faced a substantially similar problem involving a loan from the National Bank of Sterling, where he had pledged 55 shares of the Frantz stock as security for a loan of $22,000.00. Once again the defendants loaned him money and took as security the Frantz stock and charged a commission of $4,400.00. Lahman, through his company, J. H. Lahman, Inc., continued to borrow money from the defendants, not from any coercion by the defendants, but as a result of Lahman's indebtedness to persons other than the defendants.

Shortly prior to June 26, 1951, Lahman approached Gould for a loan of $15,000.00 to $20,000.00 and was turned down by Gould who said he could not loan any more money 'because your collateral is used up.' On June 26, 1951 the parties signed an agreement which recited that Lahman in consideration of the cancellation of the notes totaling $104,000.00 and the payment to him of $15,000.00 in cash, sold his 117.2 shares of Frantz stock to Gould. As he did in connection with the sale of the Interlake stock, Lahman claimed that the sale was not an absolute sale, but was merely a new collateral agreement to secure loans already made with Gould and Company. By the very terms of the agreement which Lahman signed on June 26, 1951, however, it is conceded that the transaction was a sale of the Frantz stock, 'This stock is definitely and absolutely sold to us as of this day. Should we desire to sell this stock we will first offer it to you.'

As we have already noted, plaintiff raises four issues on this appeal, the first of which is that the trial court erred in denying plaintiff Lahman leave to file an amended and supplemental complaint in excess of eighty pages, following the filing of the master's report. In denying the petition the trial court found: (1) The sufficiency of the evidence contained in the master's report, the transcript and supporting documentary matter, is not challenged by any of the parties to these proceedings as not representing all the evidence respectively offered in support of the merits or substantive issues involved; (2) the proferred complaint was not of sufficient substance or relevance to reopen the hearings on the merits or to have the cause to be reheard on the merits; and (3) the filing of the motion by the plaintiff after the master's report had been filed (some nine years after the filing of the original complaint) came too late to allow the filing of the amended and supplemental complaint.

It is clearly the law in this state that the granting or denying of an amendment to the pleadings is a matter for the discretion of the trial court whose ruling will not be disturbed on review, absent a clear showing of abuse of that discretion. Deasey v. City of Chicago, 412 Ill. 151, 105 N.E.2d 727; Old Salem Chautauqua Association v. Illinois District Council of Assembly of God, 13 Ill.2d 258, 148 N.E.2d 777; Hall v. Gerdes, 68 Ill.App.2d 119, 215 N.E.2d 8. The test to be applied in determining whether the exercise of discretion with respect to the allowance of an amendment of the pleadings was proper, is whether it furthers the ends of justice. Bowman v. County of Lake, 29 Ill.2d 268, 193 N.E.2d 833.

Plaintiff's rationale in filing the amended and supplemental complaint is that he was distraught and in financial straits and did not have accurate or adequate information, with the result that his original and amended complaints contained some 'improvident, inaccurate or inept allegations'; that over a three and one-half year period the defendants stated and represented that this cause should be decided on the basis of the 'extended evidence, both oral and documentary' which 'was offered before the master'; but that notwithstanding the above, the master devoted thirty pages of his report to an analysis of the pleadings. This procedure the plaintiff claims was extremely inequitable and unfair because an extended analysis of the pleadings was unnecessary and because the incorrect allegations on which the master relied were corrected or superseded by accurate statements the statements of facts and other documents filed by the plaintiff with the master.

It was manifestly not an abuse of discretion for the trial court to have denied plaintiff's petition to file his amended and supplemental complaint. This complaint came very late in the day of an already expensive and lengthy proceeding, during which time plaintiff had already had two opportunities to assert his claims. We see no abuse of discretion in denying him a third attempt. Moreover, on the basis of plaintiff's allegations it would be necessary for this court to find both that an analysis of the pleadings was crucial to the validity of the master's report and that, that...