Bulthaup v. Young

2025 IL App (1st) 232407-U
Appellate Court of Illinois·Decided September 12, 2025·No. 1-23-2407·Unpublished

Opinion

2025 IL App (1st) 232407-U SIXTH DIVISION

September 12, 2025

No. 1-23-2407

NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1).

IN THE

APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT

TED E. C. BULTHAUP III, ) Appeal from the Circuit Court ) of Cook County.

Plaintiff-Appellant, )

)

)

v. ) No. 19 L 4480 )

MICHAEL J. YOUNG and THE LAW OFFICE OF ) Honorable MICHAEL J. YOUNG, ) Christ Stanley Stacey ) Judge, presiding.

Defendants-Appellees. )

PRESIDING JUSTICE C.A. WALKER delivered the judgment of the court.

Justices Pucinski and Hyman concurred in the judgment.

ORDER

¶1 Held: We affirm the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment because appellant’s claim is barred by the statute of limitations.

¶2 Appellant Ted. E. C. Bulthaup appeals from the circuit court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of appellees, attorney Michael J. Young and his law office, from claims arising from Young’s representation of Bulthaup in a criminal case. The court found that Bulthaup’s claims for professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty were barred by the actual innocence rule of legal malpractice claims and the statute of limitations, respectively. We affirm.

¶3 BACKGROUND

¶4 Bulthaup filed his complaint on April 26, 2019 (which he later amended), alleging in relevant part that Young engaged in a scheme with the office of the Illinois Attorney General (AG) to secure Bulthaup’s guilty plea in exchange for the release of a $25,000 bail bond to Young as attorney’s fees. In the underlying criminal case, Bulthaup alleged the “State of Illinois brought charges for unreported sales tax” in 2014 arising from Bulthaup’s conduct in running his businesses, Hollywood Blvd Cinema and Hollywood Palms Cinema.

¶5 Bulthaup’s allegations were organized into two causes of action, (1) legal malpractice, and (2) breach of fiduciary duty. Bulthaup’s lone alleged theory for recovery based on intentional misconduct was “Young’s violation of his fiduciary duty to Bulthaup by betraying his Client at the plea stage of the criminal proceedings, with the motive of securing $25,000 held by the State for himself in a corrupt bargain.” Bulthaup alleged that at an early proceeding in the case, he overheard the AG offer to release the bond to Young in exchange for a guilty plea. Young assured Bulthaup he had not accepted. The AG was also allegedly attempting to coerce Bulthaup to plea by threatening to charge his wife. Bulthaup and Young agreed to a strategy in which they would only pretend to agree to a plea deal with the AG, then present evidence of the State’s improper coercion in procuring the plea to the circuit court at the July 6, 2016 plea hearing. The plea also involved the AG not charging Bulthaup’s wife.

¶6 During the hearing, however, Young did not follow the plan and instead “interjected purposefully to cause a false and unintended guilty plea to be accepted by the Judge in order to have the $25,000 bail bond be released to himself, all to the detriment of his own client and in promotion of his own self-interest.” Specifically, Bulthaup alleged that the court asked, “Has anybody forced you, threatened you, or promised you something to get you to plead guilty,” the prompt for Bulthaup to reveal the AG’s coercion, but instead “Young interrupted, saying, ‘May I interject? Just what was stated previously on the record, [a reference to the AGs agreement not to charge Bulthaup’s wife] other than that,’ ” and did not elaborate. Bulthaup wanted to explain that he was coerced to the Judge, and even “started to say yes” to the question of whether he was coerced in open court, but Young convinced Bulthaup to enter the plea. After the court accepted the plea, Young then told Bulthaup he could have the plea vacated at any time for “judicial error.”

¶7 The complaint continues that “While Young failed to have the $25,000 released to him prior to the plea, at the completion of the sentencing hearing the following November ***, the corrupt bargain was indeed consummated. Young then walked out of that courtroom to release those funds directly to himself.” Bulthaup further alleged that Young did not sufficiently represent him in preparing and filing the motion to reconsider sentence, titling the section “Post-Sentence Breach of Fiduciary Duties.” Despite the title, Bulthaup did not allege intentional conduct in this section.

¶8 The record shows that sentencing occurred on November 10, 2016, and the circuit court then denied the motion to reconsider sentence on April 28, 2017.

¶9 As to timing of his complaint, Bulthaup alleged that he was transferred to a work release center on June 16, 2017, where he was granted “passes” after two months, allowing him to visit a friend and start asking questions that led to the realization that “Young’s conduct was more than just unethical, sloppy and subject to an ARDC complaint, but *** constituted actual malpractice.”

¶ 10 In his answer, Young claimed that at the sentencing hearing, he received the $25,000 bond “pursuant to the Court asking [Bulthaup] if he wanted the bond refund to go to his attorney for payment of his services and [Bulthaup] said, ‘Yes,’ while nodding his head in the affirmative.” Young also filed counterclaims against Bulthaup, including count I for breach of contract.

¶ 11 Young moved to dismiss Bulthaup’s complaint, arguing in relevant part that it was untimely per the two-year statute of limitations for legal malpractice claims under 735 ILCS 5/13-214.3(b) (West 2014). In the motion, Young stated that Bulthaup was initially charged with 112 felony counts, with the AG agreeing to dismiss 110 counts in exchange for a guilty plea to one count of financial institution fraud (count VI, Pub. Act 96-1551, Art. 5, § 5-5, (eff. July 1, 2011) (adding 720 ILCS 5/17-10.6)), for which Bulthaup received a four-year prison sentence, and one count of sales tax evasion (count I, Pub. Act 97-1074, § 20, (eff. Jan. 1, 2013) (amending 35 ILCS 120/13(b))), for which he received a five-year prison sentence, with the sentences running concurrently. Young attached the motion to reconsider sentence to his motion, in which Bulthaup requested only probation, not to vacate the conviction. The circuit court denied Young’s motion to dismiss, finding the statute had not yet expired when Bulthaup filed on April 26, 2019, because “In cases where an attorney’s ongoing representation causes the injury, the accrual does not start until the representation ends. See [Taylor v. Board of Education], 2014 IL App (1st) 123744, ¶ 46. Here, Bulthaup’s injury became concrete at the earliest when the trial judge denied the motion to reconsider and Young ended his representation on April 28, 2017.”

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Bulthaup v. Young, 2025 IL App (1st) 232407-U (Ill. Ct. App. 2025).

2025 IL App (1st) 232407-U (Bulthaup v. Young) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Bardhan v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital
2026 IL App (1st) 240371-U (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2026)