Vena v. Western General Agency, Inc.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81 C 5720.,81 C 5720.
• Citation: 543 F. Supp. 779
• Parties: Michael D. VENA, Robert L. Pappas, and James A. Mastro; personally and as sole partners in an Illinois partnership known by the same names, Plaintiffs, v. WESTERN GENERAL AGENCY, INC., and Donald O. Daley, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

543 F. Supp. 779

Michael D. VENA, Robert L. Pappas, and James A. Mastro; personally and as sole partners in an Illinois partnership known by the same names, Plaintiffs, v. WESTERN GENERAL AGENCY, INC., and Donald O. Daley, Defendants.

No. 81 C 5720.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

June 29, 1982.

Dennis J. Vena, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Robert P. Cummins, Barry J. Parker, Burditt & Calkins, Chicago, Ill., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

FLAUM, District Judge:

This matter is before the court on defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and for improper venue. For the reasons stated below, the motion is denied.¹

The case involves an alleged breach of the lease of a Cessna aircraft. In the two count complaint, plaintiffs allege that they purchased a Cessna aircraft for the purpose of leasing the aircraft to defendant Western General Agency, Inc. ("WGA"). Plaintiffs further assert that simultaneously with their purchase of the aircraft defendant Donald O. Daley, in his capacity as president of WGA, executed a forty-eight month lease of the plane. It is also alleged that WGA made the required monthly payments for only three months and that WGA has been in default since April 1981. In the second count, plaintiffs allege that defendant Daley personally guaranteed full payment by WGA and that he has refused to make the payments demanded of him.

Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, claiming that it fails to allege sufficient facts to confer upon this court personal jurisdiction over defendants. In a responsive memorandum, plaintiffs filed several affidavits that provide more facts underlying the transaction and defendants filed an affidavit with their reply memorandum. Resolution of this motion turns primarily on the sufficiency of the allegations in plaintiffs' affidavits.

Each of the individual plaintiffs' affidavits state the following. Each is a resident of Illinois and became involved in this transaction initially by responding to an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. Each plaintiff read the advertisement in Illinois. It solicited investors interested in purchasing an aircraft for tax shelter purposes. The individual plaintiffs responded to the advertisement and were told to contact a Keith Ward. Ward told the plaintiffs that he had a leasing company interested in finding investors for the purchase of aircraft to be used in its leasing business. Plaintiffs submitted financial statements to Ward, who determined them to be qualified to purchase a Cessna P210 aircraft that WGA wanted to lease. Plaintiffs indicated they were interested and Ward arranged a telephone conference call with WGA and Daley, who was in WGA's office in Arizona. During several phone calls between Illinois and Arizona, plaintiffs and Daley negotiated the terms of a lease of the aircraft. Plaintiffs prepared a draft of the lease and sent it to defendants in Arizona. Defendants did not accept all the terms of the lease and sent a counterproposal to plaintiffs in Illinois. This proposal was delivered by a courier service, which was paid for by defendants. Plaintiffs then accepted the defendants' proposal in their office in Illinois.

Plaintiffs have also filed an affidavit of Keith Ward, who testifies to the following. Ward originally met Daley when Ward was employed by General Electric Credit Corporation ("General"). General financed the purchases of some of the aircraft operated in an aircraft leasing business conducted by Daley and WGA. Ward was again contacted by Daley after Ward left General and he requested Ward to locate investors who would purchase an aircraft selected by WGA to be leased by it. To find investors, Ward retained the services of another individual who had previously prepared and placed several advertisements soliciting investors to purchase aircraft for lease to WGA. Such advertisements were placed in the Wall Street Journal with the intent of having them circulated in Illinois. In November 1980, the individual plaintiffs responded to one of the advertisements and eventually entered into the subject lease.

In support of defendants' motion to dismiss, Daley presents the following facts by way of affidavit. Daley is the president of WGA, which is in the business of selling life insurance and has never been in the business of leasing aircraft. Daley has owned or leased several airplanes for his own business and personal use. Several of Daley's purchases of aircraft have been financed through General, and Daley had contacted Keith Ward at General to arrange this financing. In the fall of 1980, Ward telephoned Daley and told him that he was no longer employed at General and that he had established an aircraft leasing business with another individual. Ward told Daley that if Daley could locate an aircraft at a wholesale price, Ward would arrange financing with an investor and then set up a lease arrangement with WGA. Shortly thereafter, Daley located two airplanes and Ward indicated he was already aware of a group of investors willing to finance the least expensive of the two, a Cessna P210. WGA did not instruct Ward, his associate or their leasing business to place advertisements in the Wall Street Journal. Further, WGA has never employed Ward or his associate and WGA did not give Ward authority to act as an agent of WGA. With respect to the individual plaintiffs, Daley states that all personal contact or telephone conversations that Daley had with plaintiffs were initiated by plaintiffs or occurred through Ward and his associate. Daley also states that he executed the lease sent to WGA by plaintiffs.

In support of their contention that this court may exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants under the Illinois long arm statute, Ill.Rev.Stat. ch. 110, § 17 ("section 17"), plaintiffs characterize Ward as an agent of defendants and, thus, attribute all of his conduct to defendants. With that premise, plaintiffs argue that defendants have transacted business in Illinois within the meaning of section 17(1)(a) because defendants solicited business in Illinois through the advertisements and because Ward initiated the specific transaction for the Cessna P210 involved here. In addition, plaintiffs contend that the defendants' submission of a counterproposal lease to plaintiffs in Illinois and the lease provision stating that Illinois law will govern the lease are additional contacts with this state which are sufficient to subject defendants to the personal jurisdiction of this court.

Defendants, on the other hand, submit that Ward was not an agent of theirs and contend that plaintiffs have failed to establish that defendants have initiated sufficient contacts with Illinois to subject them to the jurisdiction of this court. Defendants have not denied that if Ward was their agent, his conduct of soliciting business in Illinois and of negotiating this transaction would constitute sufficient contacts to render defendants subject to the jurisdiction of this court. In addition, defendants recognize that any conflicts or factual disputes raised by the affidavits must be resolved in plaintiffs' favor for purposes of this motion. Thus, the main focus of defendants' arguments is that plaintiffs' affidavits are insufficient and should be disregarded. Specifically, defendants contend that many of the facts contained in the affidavits are not based on the affiants' personal knowledge and that the facts do not sufficiently demonstrate that the affiants can competently testify to all the matters contained in their affidavits. With respect to Ward, defendants maintain that he has not adequately described the circumstances under which Ward's conversation with Daley took place and that Ward does not provide any allegations establishing the precise nature of the relationship between Ward and defendants. Further, defendants submit that all the affidavits state that WGA is in the leasing business, that WGA placed the advertisement in the Wall Street Journal, and that Ward was defendants' agent, without providing facts based on personal knowledge to support these conclusions. Thus, defendants argue that if the court disregards incompetent affidavit testimony, plaintiffs have not shown sufficient facts to invoke long arm jurisdiction because plaintiffs have not alleged any facts that show contact by the two defendants with the State of Illinois.

As the parties' arguments reveal, resolution of this motion involves two determinations: whether the plaintiffs' affidavits are adequate and if they are, whether the facts alleged in them establish a prima facie case of jurisdiction under section 17. With respect to the first issue, it is clear that this court may receive and weigh affidavits in considering a challenge to its jurisdiction. O'Hare International Bank v. Hampton, 437 F.2d 1173, 1176 (7th Cir. 1971). Further, although the burden of proof rests on the party asserting jurisdiction, for the purpose of making such a determination, conflicts in the affidavits submitted by the parties must be resolved in favor of the plaintiff. Neiman v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 619 F.2d 1189 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 920, 101 S.Ct. 319, 66 L.Ed.2d 148 (1980); United States Ry. Equipment Co. v. Port Huron & Detroit Ry., 495 F.2d 1127, 1128 (7th Cir. 1974); O'Hare International Bank v. Hampton, 437 F.2d 1173, 1176 (7th Cir. 1971).

Before reaching the issue of whether the affidavits are in conflict, the court must determine whether plaintiffs' affidavits should be considered at all. Defendants' criticisms of lack of personal knowledge and insufficient detail are not persuasive on this issue. Those arguments are relevant to the weight to be given the affidavit testimony (both on this motion and for plaintiffs' ultimate burden of proof), but the affidavits are not so totally lacking that they are inadmissable evidence. Thus, plaintiffs' affidavits will be considered along with defendants' on...