American National Bank & Trust Co. v. Thomas

680 N.E.2d 480, 288 Ill. App. 3d 343, 223 Ill. Dec. 747
CourtAppellate Court of Illinois
DecidedMay 22, 1997
Docket2-96-0833
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 680 N.E.2d 480 (American National Bank & Trust Co. v. Thomas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Court of Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
American National Bank & Trust Co. v. Thomas, 680 N.E.2d 480, 288 Ill. App. 3d 343, 223 Ill. Dec. 747 (Ill. Ct. App. 1997).

Opinion

JUSTICE INGLIS

delivered the opinion of the court:

This action arose from a suit brought to quiet title to the beneficial interest in an Illinois land trust on which third-party defendant, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), claims a lien for the unpaid income taxes of third-party plaintiff, Robert C. Thomas, Sr. (Thomas, Sr.). Third-party plaintiffs, Thomas, Sr., Grazyna Thomas, Robert C. Thomas, Jr., and Lynn Trotter (collectively, plaintiffs), appeal from the order of the circuit court granting the IRS’ motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction pursuant to section 2 — 619(a)(1) of the Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2 — -619(a)(1) (West 1994)).

On February 25, 1977, Oak Brook Bank (Bank) and Dane and Virginia Erickson established Oak Brook Bank trust No. 8 — 1297 (trust). The res of the trust was a single-family residence located in Hinsdale. The trust instrument provided:

"No assignment of any beneficial interest hereunder shall be binding on the Trustee until the original or a duplicate copy of the assignment, in the form as the Trustee may approve, is lodged with the Trustee and its acceptance indicated thereon, and the reasonable fees of the Trustee for the acceptance thereof paid; and every assignment of any beneficial interest hereunder, the original or duplicate of which shall not have been lodged with the trustee, shall be void as to all subsequent assignees or purchasers without notice.”

On November 13, 1979, the Ericksons assigned the beneficial interest in the trust to Thomas, Sr., making him the sole beneficiary. The assignment was lodged with and acknowledged by the Bank on December 21, 1979. Thomas, Sr., amended the terms of the trust on January 31, 1980, to provide that the beneficial interest would vest in his children upon his death; Thomas, Sr., still retained the full power of direction with respect to the beneficial interest. This amendment was also lodged with and acknowledged by the Bank.

On January 19, 1988, Thomas, Sr., obtained a home equity line of credit from American National Bank, which he secured by a mortgage on the res of the trust. The line of credit was for 5 years and renewable for a period of up to 15 years.

On April 21, 1990, Thomas, Sr., married his current wife, Grazyna, and assigned his entire beneficial interest in the trust to Grazyna and his children. The assignment form stated that an executed copy of the form should be lodged with the Bank as trustee and that the assignment was not binding on the trustee unless and until the assignment was lodged with the trustee and its acceptance was indicated thereon. The plaintiffs never presented the assignment form to the Bank for acceptance.

On August 6, 1990, and on September 10, 1990, the IRS made assessments against Thomas, Sr., for unpaid income taxes for the years 1984 and 1985. The IRS filed a lien against Thomas, Sr., on May 14, 1991, for the taxes assessed against him.

Thomas, Sr.’s home equity line of credit expired on January 19, 1993, and American National Bank refused to renew the line of credit because of the federal tax lien. Late in 1993 or early in 1994, Thomas, Sr., disclosed the existence of the trust and the assignment of his beneficial interest to his wife and children to the IRS during negotiations. The IRS served a notice of levy on Thomas, Sr., and the Bank on February 4, 1994, and served the Bank with a summons to testify and produce its records concerning the trust. On May 10, 1994, the IRS seized the beneficial interest in and power of direction of the trust.

On May 25, 1994, American National Bank instituted foreclosure proceedings against Thomas, Sr., and the Bank, seeking to foreclose its mortgage on the res of the trust. The next day, Grazyna and the children filed a quiet title action against the IRS, alleging that they owned the beneficial interest, which the IRS was wrongfully trying to levy. Grazyna and the children and the IRS entered an agreed order on June 2, 1994, that the IRS would not sell the beneficial interest during the pendency of the litigation and on August 12, 1994, the two cases were consolidated.

The IRS informed Grazyna and the children that it believed their state action was improper and that the only way to contest the seizure was to bring a wrongful levy action in federal court. Grazyna and the children voluntarily dismissed the quiet title action without prejudice and asked the IRS to release the levy in a letter dated October 12, 1994. The IRS denied their request on November 1, 1994, by letter. The IRS’ letter indicated that Grazyna and the children would have six months in which to bring suit in federal court to contest the denial of their request. They filed their wrongful levy action on June 5, 1995, and, following the IRS’ motion to dismiss the action as untimely, voluntarily dismissed the action on September 8, 1995.

On August 16, 1995, the circuit court denied Grazyna and the children’s motion to reinstate the quiet title suit. Instead, the court gave them leave to file a third-party complaint. On September 6, 1995, plaintiffs filed the complaint to quiet title which is at issue in this appeal.

Plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that the lien and levy against the property were invalid because the IRS failed to advertise or sell the property in a timely manner, because the IRS failed to record its lien against the property, and because the property was exempt from levy as it was Thomas, Sr.’s principal residence. Plaintiffs also alleged in the alternative that the IRS levy was wrongful because Grazyna and the children alone held the beneficial interest in the land trust and because they were not liable for Thomas, Sr.’s unpaid taxes.

The IRS made a special appearance in the circuit court in order to challenge the court’s jurisdiction over plaintiff’s suit to quiet title. On April 23, 1996, the IRS filed a section 2 — 619 motion to dismiss on the grounds that plaintiffs lacked standing to bring a quiet title suit because the transfer of the beneficial interest to them was invalid with respect to the IRS. The circuit court granted the IRS’ motion to dismiss on June 17, 1996. Plaintiffs timely appealed.

Our review of a dismissal pursuant to section 2 — 619(a)(1) is de novo. Village of Riverwoods v. BG Ltd. Partnership, 276 Ill. App. 3d 720, 724 (1995). We will dismiss the complaint only if there exists no set of facts that could entitle the plaintiff to recover, and we regard all well-pleaded facts in the plaintiff’s complaint as true. Village of Riverwoods, 276 Ill. App. 3d at 724. We may affirm the trial court’s ruling on any ground supported by the record, even if it differs from the trial court’s reasoning. Shramuk v. Snyder, 278 Ill. App. 3d 745, 748 (1996).

The jurisdiction of the trial court is the only matter before us on appeal as it was the basis upon which the IRS’ motion to dismiss was brought. The United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit unless it consents to be sued, and this consent is a prerequisite to jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit. Amwest Surety Insurance Co. v. United States, 28 F.3d 690, 694 (7th Cir. 1994).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
680 N.E.2d 480, 288 Ill. App. 3d 343, 223 Ill. Dec. 747, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/american-national-bank-trust-co-v-thomas-illappct-1997.