AHA Sales, Inc. v. Creative Bath Products, Inc.

58 A.D.3d 6, 867 N.Y.S.2d 169
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedNovember 12, 2008
StatusPublished
Cited by114 cases

This text of 58 A.D.3d 6 (AHA Sales, Inc. v. Creative Bath Products, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
AHA Sales, Inc. v. Creative Bath Products, Inc., 58 A.D.3d 6, 867 N.Y.S.2d 169 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Dickerson, J.

This appeal requires us to determine, inter alia, whether we should recognize that a sales representative has an implied private right of action to enforce the terms of Labor Law § 191-b, as well as whether a sales representative may rely on both breach of contract and quasi-contractual theories of recovery under the circumstances of this case. We hold, as a matter of first impression, that a sales representative has an implied private right of action to enforce Labor Law § 191-b against a corporation to which it provides services and that, under the circumstances of this case, the plaintiff sales representative also adequately stated a cause of action under Labor Law § 191-c. We further conclude that the plaintiff may prosecute its claims against that corporation sounding in breach of fiduciary duty, quantum meruit, and unjust enrichment, but does not have a cause of action based upon promissory estoppel. Moreover, although the plaintiff has a cause of action against the corporation for an accounting, it has no cause of action against the corporation’s president and majority shareholder, in his personal capacity, for that or any other relief.

[10]*10Factual Background

AHA Sales, Inc. (hereinafter the plaintiff) is in the business of acting as a sales representative for manufacturers, and the defendant Creative Bath Products, Inc. (hereinafter Creative) is in the business of manufacturing and importing bath products for sale to retail stores. The defendant Mathias Meinzinger owns and exercises a controlling interest in Creative, and is Creative’s president. Creative and the plaintiff had a relationship dating back to approximately 1984, when Creative appointed the plaintiff as one of its sales representatives. Subsequently, as a sales representative for Creative, the plaintiff increased the revenue from Creative’s existing accounts, which included Linens & Things, Bed Bath & Beyond and Luxury Linens, and introduced new accounts, which included Barnes & Noble and Macy’s. The plaintiff more than doubled the number of accounts it worked on for Creative from 1997 through 2004, and, in 2004, the plaintiffs efforts generated more than $26 million in sales revenue for Creative. Creative was the plaintiff’s largest manufacturing customer and represented approximately one half of the plaintiffs revenues. From 2000 through 2004, the plaintiff earned the sum of approximately $425,000 in commissions on its sales of Creative’s products, and the plaintiff accounted for approximately 30% of Creative’s total sales of products. Since the plaintiff did not contract with or service other businesses whose products competed with Creative’s products, it was substantially dependent upon Creative.

According to the allegations in the complaint, the plaintiffs relationship with Creative was one of trust and confidence, in that it entrusted its future to Creative, based on statements and promises made to it by Creative and Meinzinger, as well as the conduct of Creative and Meinzinger. Had it not done so, the plaintiff claims it would have been an independent business entity because it would have elected to represent businesses other than Creative. The plaintiff claimed that Creative and Meinzinger exercised substantial control over its business, and argued that Creative required that it invest time, resources, and money servicing Creative, to the exclusion of other businesses and product lines that were available to it. For instance, the plaintiff alleges that Creative and Meinzinger determined the commissions to be paid and the deductions to be charged to the plaintiff, they demanded that the plaintiff perform services for Creative other than the services of an independent sales representative, and allocated overhead, operational, and marketing costs to the plaintiff.

[11]*11The plaintiff alleges that Creative and Meinzinger refused to provide it with a single, written contract covering all of its accounts with Creative as a sales representative, and refused to provide individual, written accounts for each of the plaintiff s accounts with Creative as a sales representative. However, the plaintiff claims that Creative and Meinzinger orally entered into a binding sales representative agreement with it, under which the parties operated after the plaintiff assumed its corporate form in 1993. The plaintiff contends that Creative represented to it that a written agreement was unnecessary because the plaintiff could trust Meinzinger and Creative. The plaintiff asserts that it received oral assurances from Creative and Meinzinger that it would continue to be Creative’s sales representative as long as Meinzinger owned Creative and did not sell it to a third party, provided that Creative still operated “in the territory” that it historically covered. Despite the absence of a formal written omnibus agreement, on several occasions, the parties nonetheless reduced terms and conditions of their agreement to writing. For instance, in a memorandum dated March 14, 2005, and addressed to all of its sales representatives, Creative, after confirming that it had previously been required to pay commissions within 15 days from the end of the month in which its products had shipped, unilaterally changed the timing of payments to 45 days from the end of the month of shipment.

According to the plaintiff, Meinzinger and Creative induced it to continue to serve as a sales representative for Creative by providing it with the assurances and promises that formed the basis of the sales representative agreement and by concealing Creative’s undisclosed intention to terminate its relationship with the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleges, in the complaint, that it reasonably and detrimentally relied on Meinzinger’s and Creative’s representations in this regard.

The plaintiff further contends, in the complaint, that Creative and Meinzinger also failed to timely pay all commissions it earned before terminating both the sales representative agreement and Creative’s relationship with it. Additionally, the plaintiff claims that, while its relationship with Creative was still ongoing, Creative and Meinzinger requested that it perform nonsales representative services, and that they accepted the benefit of those services, but that they then refused to pay it the reasonable value of those services.

In the summer of 2004, after hiring a consultant to review its business, Creative decided to terminate the plaintiffs services. [12]*12The plaintiff alleges that Creative and Meinzinger affirmatively concealed that determination from it for approximately four months, in order to induce it to provide all of the substantial preorder services for existing accounts and to finalize those programs that would be used to obtain and replenish orders. The plaintiff claims that, once it received confirmations from customers that preorder services were completed, Creative and Meinzinger terminated its services before the orders were received, and thereafter refused to pay it any commissions for that work for the very reason that the orders had not yet been received. Creative terminated the plaintiffs services, purportedly without notice, at a meeting held on or about April 13, 2005.

The plaintiff alleges that Creative conditioned payment of commissions on the return of certain property in the plaintiffs possession, and declared that it would withhold 25% of the commissions owed to the plaintiff as security against a final reconciliation for returns, allowances, and other adjustments to commissionable sales.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
58 A.D.3d 6, 867 N.Y.S.2d 169, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/aha-sales-inc-v-creative-bath-products-inc-nyappdiv-2008.