Opinion
No. 01 C 2015
February 21, 2002
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Pro se plaintiff Stephen Denari ("Denari") has sought leave to file a Second Amended Complaint ("SAC"), adding two things:
1. prayers for relief in conjunction with pre-existing Counts I and II that seek to invoke remedies provided by 215 ILCS 5/155; and
2. another claim (set out in SAC Count III) that charges Genesis Insurance Company ("Genesis") with having conspired with Navigant Consulting, Inc. ("Navigant") toward Genesis' breach of its Directors and Officers Liability Insurance Policy issued to Navigant's directors and officers (a category that then included Denari).
Genesis has opposed Denari's motion, but Denari's brief reply to Genesis' response has made it plain that in this instance nonlawyer Denari's research has trumped that of Genesis' counsel.
Fully a quarter century has elapsed since our Court of Appeals' opinion in Bailey v. Meister Brau, Inc., 535 F.2d 982, 989 (7th Cir. 1976) quotedBlivas Page, Inc. v. Klein, 5 Ill. App.3d 280, 285, 282 N.E.2d 210, 214 (2d Dist. 1972) as confirming this principle of Illinois law:
While it is true that a party cannot be sued in tort for inducing the breach of his own contract, he can be sued for conspiracy with a third person who has induced him to breach his contract resulting in actual damage.
And since the Bailey decision, Dempsey v. Sternik, 147 Ill. App.3d 571, 577, 498 N.E.2d 310, 314 (3d Dist. 1986) — while also citing other Illinois Appellate decisions to the same effect — has reconfirmed the same principle:
Where the third party influences a contracting party to breach the contract, the innocent contracting party has a cause of action against both the other contracting party and a tort action against the third party.
That then justifies Denari's addition of Count III to the SAC. And as for the proposed addition of a statutory basis for relief under Counts I and II, that alters neither the nature of Denari's required proof nor the manner of Genesis' resistance to Denari's claim. That aspect of Denari's motion is also granted (with the ruling referred to in n. 1 to apply here as well).
This ruling does not, however, carry with it any enlargement in the about-to-expire schedule for the close of discovery. Denari has identified nothing to indicate that the same claim could not have been advanced earlier, so as to permit any discovery needed in that respect to have been completed.