LINC Finance Corp. v. Onwuteaka

• fullCitation: LINC Finance Corp. v. Onwuteaka, 129 F.3d 917 (7th Cir. 1997)
• Decision Date: 17 November 1997
• Citation: 129 F.3d 917
• Docket Number: No. 96-4070,96-4070
• Parties: LINC FINANCE CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph ONWUTEAKA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 917

129 F.3d 917

LINC FINANCE CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph ONWUTEAKA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-4070.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Oct. 27, 1997.

Decided Nov. 17, 1997.

Michael D. Richman (argued), Arnold A. Pagniucci, Nathan H. Dardick, Sachnoff & Weaver, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Joseph Onwuteaka (argued), Houston, TX, Joseph L. Goldberg, Keith A. Goldberg, Goldberg & Goldberg, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before CUMMINGS, EASTERBROOK and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

CUMMINGS, Circuit Judge.

Joseph Onwuteaka is a trial attorney and certified public accountant living and practicing in Texas. LINC Finance Corporation is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in Illinois. In early 1992, Onwuteaka began negotiating with LINC ¹ for the lease of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine. After numerous telephone conversations with LINC employees, Onwuteaka decided to lease an MRI machine from LINC. In order to conclude the lease, LINC sent Onwuteaka an Equipment Lease, an Equipment Schedule, and a Personal Guaranty. Onwuteaka eventually signed these documents and returned them to LINC, apparently neglecting to keep copies for himself. LINC, in turn, executed the documents and returned fully signed copies to Onwuteaka.

The Equipment Lease that the parties signed was to run for a term of 49 months beginning October 1, 1992. Onwuteaka agreed to pay LINC $13,000 per month in rent, plus personal property tax assessments and state and local sales taxes on the MRI. Including the sales taxes, Onwuteaka's monthly payment was $14,072.50.

The Equipment Lease also included a clause requiring Onwuteaka to continue making monthly payments for the entire term of the lease, without regard to any defenses to payment that he might otherwise be able to make. In addition, the Equipment Lease provided that it could only be canceled upon notice by LINC. Finally, LINC reserved the right to pursue various remedies for any breach of the agreement, which remedies were expressly made cumulative.

From October 1992 through July 1995 Onwuteaka paid the monthly rent and sales taxes on the MRI. He also made some personal property tax payments to appropriate authorities. After July 1995, he made no further payments, ostensibly on the ground that LINC had canceled the lease agreement. Yet Onwuteaka could point to no communication, either written or oral, in which any representative of LINC had ever told him that the lease was canceled. LINC had sent Onwuteaka a letter in April 1995 informing him that the "Purchase Option and Renewal Option" included in the Equipment Lease had been canceled, but nothing in that LINC filed a collection action against Onwuteaka in August 1995. Onwuteaka answered and counterclaimed that LINC had failed to protest a 1993 personal property tax assessment on the MRI, thereby damaging him in the amount of $16,000. In his answer to LINC's first amended complaint, Onwuteaka denied the existence of personal jurisdiction over him in the Northern District of Illinois. In his second (and final) amended answer and counterclaim, however, Onwuteaka conceded that the court possessed both subject matter and personal jurisdiction.

letter indicated that the underlying lease was not still in effect.

After the conclusion of discovery in June 1996, LINC moved for summary judgment as to liability and damages under the Equipment Lease and the Personal Guaranty. Accompanying this motion was the affidavit of a LINC employee detailing the damages LINC claimed against Onwuteaka. The requested damages totaled $423,811. Notably, in calculating the damage figure LINC allowed a setoff of $16,000, the amount Onwuteaka demanded in his counterclaim, and another of $65,000, which was the price LINC obtained when it sold the MRI machine following Onwuteaka's alleged default. LINC also submitted the affidavit of one of its attorneys itemizing the legal fees and costs LINC had incurred in prosecuting the suit.

Onwuteaka submitted a memorandum of law opposing summary judgment, along with his own affidavit denying liability. In an order dated November 7, 1996, District Judge Plunkett granted summary judgment in favor of LINC as to liability but disallowed some of its requested damages, entering judgment in the amount of $218,825.61. This amount included $41,084.61 in attorneys' fees and costs assessed against Onwuteaka as a result of a feeshifting provision in the Equipment Lease. Onwuteaka filed a timely notice of appeal to this Court, and we affirm.

I. SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo. Cornfield by Lewis v. Consolidated High School Dist. No. 230, 991 F.2d 1316, 1320 (7th Cir.1993). Summary judgment is appropriate where "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2551, 91 L.Ed.2d 265. The reviewing court must construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and draw all justifiable inferences in favor of that party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2513, 91 L.Ed.2d 202. Once the moving party has produced evidence to show that it is entitled to summary judgment, the party seeking to avoid such judgment must affirmatively demonstrate that a genuine issue of material fact remains for trial. Johnson v. City of Fort Wayne, 91 F.3d 922, 931 (7th Cir.1996).

In responding to a summary judgment motion, the nonmoving party may not simply rest upon the allegations contained in the pleadings. "The object of [Rule 56(e) ] is not to replace conclusory allegations of the complaint or answer with conclusory allegations of an affidavit." Lujan v. National Wildlife Fed'n, 497 U.S. 871, 888, 110 S.Ct. 3177, 3188, 111 L.Ed.2d 695. Moreover, a genuine issue of material fact is not shown by the mere existence of "some alleged factual dispute between the parties," Anderson, 477 U.S. at 247, 106 S.Ct. at 2509, or by "some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts," Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1355, 89 L.Ed.2d 538. Rather, a genuine issue of material fact exists only if "a fair-minded jury could return a verdict for the [nonmoving party] on the evidence presented." Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. at 2511.

II. THE ALLEGED JURISDICTIONAL ISSUE

Onwuteaka's first objection to the summary judgment below is that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case. Yet in attempting to prove his claim, Onwuteaka makes arguments that could only be pertinent to the issue of personal In any event, there is no indication that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit. Onwuteaka admitted in his second amended answer that complete diversity of citizenship was present between the parties and that the amount in controversy exceeded the jurisdictional minimum ($50,000 at the time). He points to no facts that would suggest a lack of diversity, and the district court's award of more than $200,000 dispels any doubt that the jurisdictional amount is satisfied.

                jurisdiction, not subject matter jurisdiction.  He argues that he "did not have any minimum contacts with the state of Illinois."   Every first year Civil Procedure student knows that minimum contacts have nothing to do with subject matter jurisdiction.  As shall be seen, however, this is unfortunately not the only respect in which Onwuteaka's advocacy in this case has been grievously defective
                

Onwuteaka may have attempted his clumsy conflation of personal and subject matter jurisdiction in order to avoid the fact that he has rather obviously waived any objection he may have had to the district court's personal jurisdiction over him. Compare Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(3) (allowing matter to be dismissed at any time for lack of subject matter jurisdiction), with Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(h)(1) (declaring defense of lack of personal jurisdiction waived if not presented in responsive pleading or first Rule 12 motion). For one thing, Onwuteaka's second amended answer admitted that he had conducted significant business in Illinois. For another, Onwuteaka never moved to dismiss the action for lack of personal jurisdiction; in fact, he vigorously contested the suit on its merits. Finally, the Equipment Lease that Onwuteaka signed contained an express forum selection clause, printed in large bold-face type, by which the parties consented to jurisdiction in any federal district court in Illinois.

Onwuteaka simply does not have a leg to stand on with regard to either personal jurisdiction or subject matter jurisdiction. LINC was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and this Court therefore affirms the grant of summary judgment as to this issue.

III. ONWUTEAKA'S OTHER ISSUES

Onwuteaka makes several other arguments on appeal, attacking, inter alia, the validity of LINC Scientific Leasing's assignment of its claim to LINC Finance, the absence of a specific plea for sales taxes, property taxes, or late payment fees in LINC's complaint, the admission of affidavits of certain LINC employees, and the interaction between the Equipment Lease and the Equipment Schedule. In all, Onwuteaka's brief purports to raise nine issues in addition to the jurisdictional argument discussed above.

The first problem with all of these nonjurisdictional contentions is that Onwuteaka, in some eleven pages of "argument," cites not a single case or statute to support his position. Indeed, were it not for one citation to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c), Onwuteaka's nonjurisdictional arguments would be utterly devoid of any citation to authority beyond the record. "It is...