Schnidt v. Henehan

• Decision Date: 31 January 1986
• Docket Number: No. 2-84-0971,2-84-0971
• Citation: 489 N.E.2d 415,140 Ill.App.3d 798,95 Ill.Dec. 194
• Parties: , 95 Ill.Dec. 194 Donald SCHNIDT and Donna Schnidt, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Raymond HENEHAN, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 415

489 N.E.2d 415

140 Ill.App.3d 798, 95 Ill.Dec. 194

Donald SCHNIDT and Donna Schnidt, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Raymond HENEHAN, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 2-84-0971.

Appellate Court of Illinois,

Second District.

Jan. 31, 1986.

Thomas W. Gooch, III, Wauconda, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Caldwell, Berner & Caldwell, James E. Berner, Woodstock, for defendant-appellee.

SCHNAKE, Justice:

Plaintiffs, Donald and Donna Schnidt, brought this action for legal malpractice and fraud in the circuit court of McHenry County against the defendant, Attorney Raymond Henehan. The trial court granted defendant's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' fourth amended complaint and dismissed the cause with prejudice. Plaintiffs thereafter brought this appeal.

Plaintiffs' claims arose out of a real estate transaction in which they sought to purchase certain commercial real estate located at 50 Crystal Street, Cary. Plaintiffs had been operating a business known as "The Pampered Pet" from that location when they decided to purchase the building and hire defendant to represent them. Plaintiffs originally contracted to purchase the real estate by a standard conveyance by deed contract conditioned upon plaintiffs obtaining a convential $40,000 mortgage and receiving a firm contract for sale of their home for $57,500 by July 15, 1979. Defendant, as their attorney, advised plaintiffs that he would arrange the necessary financing for this transaction. When these conditions were not met, the parties restructured the transaction from a conveyance by deed to a purchase by articles of agreement (installment contract) which also required some financing. Defendant again advised plaintiffs that he would arrange the necessary financing. In August of 1979, the deal failed to close because defendant had not obtained the necessary financing.

On October 5, 1979, plaintiffs filed this action. Over the next five years the parties conducted discovery and plaintiffs filed several amended complaints. On June 5, 1984, plaintiffs filed their fourth amended complaint. Count I of the fourth amended complaint was based on a theory of negligence or legal malpractice and alleged that defendant had agreed to arrange for the necessary financing and that the real estate transaction had failed when defendant failed to supply the necessary financing. Count II contained the same basic allegations of count I but further alleged that defendant intentionally and knowingly failed to arrange for the necessary financing. Count III was based on a theory of fraud and alleged that defendant told plaintiffs on several occasions that he had arranged the necessary financing and that plaintiffs would be able to close the real estate transaction at any time. Count IV was also based on fraud and alleged that defendant told plaintiffs on several occasions that he would arrange for or personally supply the necessary mortgage financing.

On July 12, 1984, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the fourth amended complaint for failure to state a cause of action under section 2-615 of the Code of Civil Procedure (Ill.Rev.Stat.1983, ch. 110, par. 2-615). Plaintiffs filed a response to defendant's motion on September 19, 1984, asking that the motion be denied or, in the alternative, that if the motion was granted, that they be given leave to amend. Plaintiffs' response also argued that a motion to dismiss was similar to a motion for summary judgment and required the court to consider all pleadings, depositions and affidavits. Plaintiffs, therefore, requested that the court order that all depositions be filed with the court before it decided the motion to dismiss. In his reply, defendant argued that it was improper to consider matters outside the pleadings for a motion to dismiss. On September 19, 1984, the trial court denied plaintiffs' request for the filing of all depositions. On October 3, 1984, the trial court dismissed plaintiffs' fourth amended complaint with prejudice.

The first reason stated by the trial court for dismissing the complaint was that plaintiffs had failed to "prove" that defendant did not use a reasonable degree of skill or care in his efforts to procure the necessary financing in light of the tight lending market of the 1979 recession and Donna Marie Schnidt's admission in her discovery deposition that she had tried unsuccessfully to obtain the necessary financing at 15 lending institutions prior to the closing. Mere failure to be successful in an undertaking, the court noted, was not sufficient to hold defendant liable for malpractice.

It is generally recognized that a section 2-615 motion to dismiss attacks only the sufficiency of the complaint and should be decided only upon the allegations set forth therein. (Johnson v. Nationwide Business Forms, Inc. (1976), 41 Ill.App.3d 128, 3 Ill.Dec. 761, 359 N.E.2d 171.) The motion should be granted only if it is clear that plaintiffs can prove no set of facts under the pleading which would entitle them to relief. (Alper Services, Inc. v. Wilson (1980), 85 Ill.App.3d 908, 41 Ill.Dec. 179, 407 N.E.2d 677.) In dismissing plaintiffs' complaint, the trial court did not find any legal insufficiency in the pleading. Rather, the court ruled that plaintiffs had failed to prove their allegations based upon matters outside the pleadings. Such a holding, in ruling on a motion to dismiss, was improper. Alper Services, Inc.

The second reason stated by the trial court for dismissing plaintiffs' fourth amended complaint was plaintiffs' failure to produce an expert witness. Plaintiffs argue that they had no duty to produce an expert to defeat a motion to dismiss on the pleadings and that, in any event, they did procure an expert.

The law is well settled in Illinois that an attorney is liable to his client for damages only when he fails to exercise a reasonable degree of care and skill and that the standard of care against which the attorney's conduct will be measured must generally be established through expert testimony. (Schmidt v. Hinshaw, Culbertson, Moelmann, Hoban & Fuller (1979), 75 Ill.App.3d 516, 31 Ill.Dec. 357, 394 N.E.2d 559; Brainerd v. Kates (1979), 68 Ill.App.3d 781, 25 Ill.Dec. 315, 386 N.E.2d 586.) It is also well settled that summary judgment may be appropriate where a plaintiff cannot obtain the expert testimony necessary to prove the alleged negligence. (Schmidt; Brainerd; Hill v. Lutheran Hospital (1978), 58 Ill.App.3d 1003, 16 Ill.Dec. 372, 374 N.E.2d 1147; Sanders v. Frost (1969), 112 Ill.App.2d 234, 251 N.E.2d 105.) In the present case, however, the trial court was deciding a motion to dismiss on the pleadings, not a motion for summary judgment. We are unaware of any case law that requires a plaintiff to produce an expert witness in order to defeat a motion to dismiss. To the contrary, a section 2-615 motion to dismiss attacks only the sufficiency of the pleadings and should be decided only upon the allegations set forth therein. (Johnson v. Nationwide Business Forms, Inc. (1976), 41 Ill.App.3d 128, 3 Ill.Dec. 761, 359 N.E.2d 171.) The trial court, therefore, also erred in dismissing plaintiffs' fourth amended complaint on this basis.

On appeal defendant raises two additional arguments in support of the trial court's dismissal. First, defendant argues, as he did in the trial court, that the fourth amended complaint fails to state a cause of action because the allegations are confusing, contradictory, and fail to advise defendant of the issues.

The fourth amended complaint alleges that plaintiffs hired defendant to represent them in the purchase of certain commercial real estate, that defendant stated he would obtain the necessary financing for the transaction, and that defendant failed to obtain the necessary financing. The facts and pleadings are admittedly somewhat complicated because the method of sale was changed in midstream from a conveyance by deed to a purchase by articles of agreement when plaintiffs were unable to sell their home. The complaint, however, is not so confusing or contradictory as to justify dismissal.

Specifically, defendant argues that plaintiffs failed to allege that the vendors ever agreed to sell under articles of agreement contract. To the contrary, plaintiffs alleged that defendant drafted the necessary papers for a sale by articles of agreement and that the vendors signed the agreement. Defendant also argues on several different grounds that the exhibits attached to the complaint are incomplete or make no sense. We fail to discern however, how any deficiencies in the attached documents can justify dismissing plaintiffs' complaint when it was defendant who drafted or supplied the documents that he now complains of. As a third point, defendant argues it is unclear which contract, the original contract for a conveyance by deed or the articles of agreement, plaintiffs are referring to in several of their allegations. We find no such ambiguity when the complaint is read as a whole. The original contract for conveyance by deed was abandoned by the parties when plaintiffs failed to sell their home by July 15, 1979. The parties then agreed on a sale by the articles of agreement which also required plaintiffs to obtain some financing. Plaintiffs allege that defendant again agreed to arrange this financing and that it was defendant's failure to obtain the necessary financing under the latter articles of agreement which resulted in the transaction's failure to close and it is this failure for which defendant is being sued.

Defendant's second argument is based on plaintiffs' allegation that but for the wrongful acts of defendant, plaintiffs would have been able to consummate the purchase of the subject real estate. Defendant contends that this allegation is a conclusion and insufficient to support a cause of action. Defendant argues that plaintiffs should have pleaded "that they could have procured the financing and purchased the building if the defendant had not...