Opinion
No. 01 C 2613.
October 15, 2001
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiff has sued a number of companies or entities for breach of an employment contract. The defendants are all related to each other to some extent and the names of some have changed, so keeping track of who is who is somewhat chaflenging. For present purposes we need not sort all of them out because the pending motion is by one defendant to dismiss. That defendant is Venturion Capital f/k/a Argonaut Private Equity Management, LLC (Venturion-Argonaut).
The basis of Venturion-Argonaut's motion is that it had no written employment agreement with plaintiff and, indeed, no agreement of any kind, it contends that plaintiff's claim violates the Illinois Statute of Frauds — it was not a party to the written contract upon which plaintiff relies, and there is no basis for piercing the corporate veil. We conclude, however, that there are grounds, at the pleading stage, to plead that plaintiff's contract bound Venturion-Argonaut. Accordingly, we deny the motion.
From the written contract attached to the complaint it appears that plaintiff was to he employed as the Chief Development Officer of Global Financial Trade Services (GFTS), an entity newly formed by Global Fiduciary Trade Services, Ltd. (Ltd.) and Veuturion Argonaut. It Is executed by plaintiff and by John Burns as Chief Executive Officer, apparently of GFTS. From that, Venturion-Argonaut argues that the contract was clearly between plaintiff and GETS, and not anyone else, for employment by GFTS.
But that is not the whole story The contract on the joint letterhead of Ltd. and Venturion-Argonaut, begins with this sentence:
I am extending a consulting contract and/or offer of employment to you from Global Fiduciary Trade Services, Ltd. and Argonaut Private Equity Management LLC to join its newly formed entity, Global Fiduciary Trade Services ("GETS") as its Chief Development Officer ("CDO").
Further, in the event GFTS closed within oneyear, he would be assigned "to one or the other of the Argonaut portfoho of projects for the remainder of the year." That smacks of a promise by Venturion-Argonaut. Finally, there is nothing on the face of the contract that indicates that John Burns lacked the authority to extend an offer of employment from the two entities. There is, as well, nothing that prevents one entity from contracting for services to be performed for another.
Venturion-Argonaut relies heavily upon Susmano v. Associated Internists of Chicago, Ltd., 52 Ill.Dec. 670, 422 N.E.2d 879 (Ill.App. 1 Dist. 1981), but that case does not carry the day. It was there determined, on summary judgment after discovery, that plaintiff had two separate contracts, one with a hospital and another with a physicians' group, and the hospital was not a party to the physicians' contract. Here there is, apparently, but one contract and plaintiff is entitled to seek to prove that Venturion-Argonaut was a party to it.