Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel, LLP v. XO Communications Services, Inc.

190 F. Supp. 3d 765, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72692, 2016 WL 3125009
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJune 3, 2016
DocketCase No. 16 C 2331
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 190 F. Supp. 3d 765 (Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel, LLP v. XO Communications Services, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel, LLP v. XO Communications Services, Inc., 190 F. Supp. 3d 765, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72692, 2016 WL 3125009 (N.D. Ill. 2016).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

Milton I. Shadur, Senior United States District Judge

Cafferty Clobes Meriwether & Sprengel, LLP (“Cafferty Clobes”) brought this lawsuit against XO Communications Services, Inc. under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005, 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d), challenging the automatic renewal provisions of its [768]*768Service Order Agreement (“Agreement”). XO Communications Services, LLC then moved to dismiss that Complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 12(b)(6) for an asserted failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted and under Rule 21 for a claimed misjoinder (Dkt. No. 14),,the latter on the ground that the originally named defendant had converted from a conventional corporation to a limited liability company in 2011 (see X. Mem. 4).1 That motion’s arguments under Rule 12(b)(6) were not mooted when Cafferty Clobes then cured the misjoinder in its First Amended Complaint (“FAC”), and so this Court now turns to XO’s substantive reasons for dismissal.

Motion To Dismiss Standards

Under Rule 12(b)(6) a party may move for dismissal for the “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” Familiar Rule 12(b)(6) principles require the district court to accept as true all of Cafferty Clobes’ well-pleaded factual allegations and to view them in the light most favorable to it as the non-moving party (Lavalais v. Vill. of Melrose Park, 734 F.3d 629, 632 (7th Cir,2013)). But “legal conclusions or conclusory allegations that merely recite a claim’s elements” are not entitled to any presumption of truth (Munson v. Gaetz, 673 F.3d 630, 632 (7th Cir.2012)).

In the past decade the Supreme Court made an important change in the evaluation of Rule 12(b)(6) motions via what this Court regularly refers to as the “Twom-bly-Iqbal canon,” a usage drawn from Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), as more finely tuned in Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007) (per curiam), and Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009)). That canon has introduced the concept of “plausibility” into the analysis, and in that respect our Court, of Appeals has “interpreted Twombly and bal to require the plaintiff to provid[e] some, specific facts, to support the legal claims asserted.in the complaint” (McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d 611, 616 (7th Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks omitted)). As McCauley went on to reconfirm, claimants “must give enough details about the subject-matter of the case to present a story that, holds together” (id.).

Because the focus of Rule 12(b)(6) motions is on the pleadings, they “can be based only on the complaint itself, documents attached to the complaint, documents that are critical to the complaint and referred to in it, and information that is subject to proper judicial notice” (Geinosky v. City of Chicago, 675 F.3d 743, 745 n. 1 (7th. Cir.2012)). But a nonmovant has more flexibility, for it “may elaborate on [its] factual allegations so long as the new elaborations are consistent with the pleadings” (id.).

In granting a dismissal, courts should usually give a claimant at least one opportunity to amend (Runnion ex rel. Runnion v. Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago & Nw. Ind., 786 F.3d 510, 519 (7th Cir. 2015)). And consistently with the principles of Rule 15(a)(2), courts generally grant leave to amend freely. But where “it is certain ... that any amendment would be futile or otherwise unwarranted,” the court can deny leave to amend (id. at 519-20, emphasis in original).

[769]*769Background

XO agreed to provide local and long distance telephone service to the Cafferty Clobes law firm for an initial term of three years beginning on July 7, 2005 (FAC ¶¶ 11, 13)'.' Agreement ¶ B (the “Renewal Clause”) (1) provided that service would automatically continue for successive three-year terms unless cancelled, (2) promised that XO would give written notice of impending renewal (“Renewal Notice”) before the contract term expired and (3) required that any requests to terminate service be in writing and received at least 30 days before the requested effective termination date. It concluded with a reminder that early termination could result in applicable Termination Charges (id.). Those Termination Charges were specified in Agreement ¶ J (the “Termination Clause”), which tied them to the amount that Cafferty Clobes could be expected to pay over the remainder of the cancelled term. Agreement ¶ M further said that the substantive law of the Commonwealth of Virginia was to govern.

Pursuant to the Renewal Clause, the Agreement was extended for additional terms on July 7 of each of 2008, 2011 and 20Í4 (FAC ¶ 14). But the only information that Cafferty Clobes received from XO about those renewals, was a standard reminder accompanying each monthly bill (“Invoice Language”) (FAC ¶¶ 14-15). That reminder, a copy of which is attached as Ex. 1 to this opinion, instructed Cafferty Clobes to call XO at least 45 days before the Agreement expired if it did not -wish to renew for another term (FAC ¶ 15). Neither the invoice nor that reminder specified the date on which Cafferty Clobes’ three-year term was to roll over (id.).

In the summer of 2015 Cafferty Clobes moved its office to a location-that XO was unable to service and so cancelled the Agreement, paying a $1000 termination charge (FAC ¶ 17). XO then demanded a further $9000 in liquidated damages for Cafferty Clobes’ early termination (FAC ¶ 18). When Cafferty Clobes refused to pay, XO hired debt collectors to pursue it (FAC ¶ 19).

Rather than defend against XO’s collection efforts, Cafferty Clobes brought this class action. In four counts it alleges (1) contract-based theories of recovery, (2) violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILCS 505/1 et seq. (the “Consumer Fraud Act”), (3) violation of the Illinois Automatic Contract Renewal Act, 815 ILCS 601/1 et seq. (the “Automatic Renewal Act”) and (4) unjust enrichment as an alternative to Count I.

Contractual Theories of Recovery

Both parties agree that Virginia law governs the Agreement (X. Mem. 4-5; C. Mem. 3 n.3). As recently reconfirmed in Ramos v. Wells Fargo Bank, NA, 289 Va. 321, 770 S.E.2d 491, 493 (2015), in Virginia the elements of a breach of contract action are (1) a legally enforceable obligation, (2) the violation or breach of that obligation and (3) injury or damage caused by that breach. Moreover, “when parties to a contract create valid and binding rights, an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing is inapplicable to those rights” (Ward’s Equip., Inc, v. New Holland N. Am., Inc., 254 Va.

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190 F. Supp. 3d 765, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72692, 2016 WL 3125009, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cafferty-clobes-meriwether-sprengel-llp-v-xo-communications-services-ilnd-2016.