Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01072/USCOURTS-ca7-16-01072-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
James J. Ablan
Appellant
Bank of America Corporation
Appellee
Beacon Realty Capital, Inc.
Appellant
Merrill Lynch Mortgage Lending, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Argued September 14, 2016 

Decided October 31, 2016 

Before 

RICHARD A. POSNER, Circuit Judge 

FRANK H. EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge

DIANE S. SYKES, Circuit Judge

No. 16-1072 

JAMES J. ABLAN and 

BEACON REALTY CAPITAL, INC., 

 Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

v. 

BANK OF AMERICA CORPORATION 

and MERRILL LYNCH MORTGAGE 

LENDING, INC., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 

Appeal from the 

United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern Division. 

No. 11 C 4493 

Charles R. Norgle, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

James Ablan is a financing broker who in 2003 contracted with Tax Strategies 

Group, a company that purchased commercial properties for resale to investors. The 

contract made him the company’s exclusive financing representative and required Tax 

Strategies to pay him commissions for loans he secured on its behalf. In 2006 Ablan 

approached Merrill Lynch in an attempt to secure a loan for an acquisition Tax 

Strategies was pursuing. Merrill Lynch agreed to finance the acquisition a month later. 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 

Case: 16-1072 Document: 35 Filed: 10/31/2016 Pages: 2
No. 16-1072 Page 2 

Around the same time, however, Tax Strategies terminated its agreement with Ablan 

and severed their relationship. Protracted litigation ensued over disputed commissions 

related to the Merrill Lynch loan. Ablan and Tax Strategies eventually settled their 

dispute. 

Ablan then sued Bank of America, Merrill Lynch’s successor, alleging that 

Merrill Lynch: (1) tortiously interfered with his contract with Tax Strategies; (2) failed to 

fulfill a promise to Ablan that he would receive certain commissions related to the 

financing agreement and is therefore liable under promissory estoppel; and 

(3) conspired with Tax Strategies to deprive him of commissions he was owed. The 

district court, sitting in diversity and applying Illinois law, found no evidence of 

tortious interference or detrimental reliance and granted summary judgment for Bank 

of America on all claims. The judge’s order did not specifically address the civil 

conspiracy claim. 

On appeal Ablan does not contest the judge’s rulings against him on his claims 

for tortious interference and promissory estoppel. He argues only that the judge 

overlooked the conspiracy claim and seeks a remand to allow the court to specifically 

address it. 

We review the summary judgment de novo. Boston v. U.S. Steel Corp., 816 F.3d 

455, 462 (7th Cir. 2016). A remand would be pointless. To succeed on a civil conspiracy 

claim, a plaintiff must establish an underlying tort. “It is well settled in Illinois that 

conspiracy does not of itself constitute an actionable wrong. Instead, conspiracy 

becomes actionable only when the underlying conduct which is the subject of the 

conspiracy is independently tortious.” Champion Parts, Inc. v. Oppenheimer & Co., 

878 F.2d 1003, 1008 (7th Cir. 1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). Ablan insists that 

Bank of America can be found liable because Merrill Lynch facilitated a breach of his 

contract with Tax Strategies. But “facilitation” is not a tort. When the judge concluded 

that Bank of America is not liable under theories of tortious interference or promissory 

estoppel, the conspiracy claim was necessarily adjudicated and necessarily failed. And 

when a claim is necessarily adjudicated, a district court need not explicitly address that 

claim. See Am. Nat’l Bank & Tr. Co. of Chi. v. Sec'y of Hous. & Urban Dev. of Wash., D.C., 

946 F.2d 1286, 1290 (7th Cir. 1991). 

AFFIRMED. 

Case: 16-1072 Document: 35 Filed: 10/31/2016 Pages: 2