Opinion ID: 2995090
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failing to properly prepare the

Text: Dollar Bill$ transaction documentation so that the TPI/Alper wholesale merchandising business was specifically immunized from the transaction. Id., para. 59./1 Plaintiffs allege damages to the extent of $200,000 in attorney’s fees [the amount paid to Altheimer for their services in connection with the original transaction] and in excess of $1.5 million attributable to the loss of their wholesale merchandising business. See Memorandum in Support of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment at 12. In comparison, Altheimer alleges that Bickel was negligent in its pursuit of the Alpers’ claims against DTS and Avers and that the Alpers’ inability to obtain compensation from DTS and Avers for their alleged injuries is the proximate result of Bickel’s negligence. Altheimer asserts that, if the Alpers were successful on the claims they advanced against DTS and Avers, they could have obtained relief for all the losses they claimed to have sustained as a result of the Stock Purchase Agreement and DTS’ subsequent dealings with Avers. This argument overlooks the fact that those suits would not have returned the $200,000 the Alpers had already paid to Altheimer. Nonetheless, if the bases for liability among the contributors do not have to be the same, Vroegh v. J & M Forklift, 651 N.E.2d 121, 125 (Ill. 1995), then the fact that the monetary damage caused by Altheimer’s and Bickel’s actions is not equivalent should not be an obstacle to holding both liable for contributing to the same injury. Whether we find that Altheimer and Bickel have caused the same injury depends on how broadly or narrowly we define the injury. Under a broad definition of injury, a fact-finder could find that both parties failed to competently represent the Alpers and protect the Alpers’ legitimate business interests. For example, if the injury encompasses DTS’s fraudulent acquisition and continued retention of the diverting business, and the Alpers’ inability to obtain relief for Avers’ defection to DTF, then Altheimer and Bickel could both have contributed to that injury. In contrast, if the Alpers’ injury is that Altheimer drafted flawed transaction documents, then Bickel cannot be held liable for that injury because Bickel had no part in the drafting. To determine how to appropriately characterize plaintiffs’ injury, we look to Illinois case law addressing the same injury requirement. The most relevant case, People v. Brockman, 592 N.E.2d 1026 (Ill. 1992), defined the injury fairly broadly. In the underlying suit, the State of Illinois charged the defendants with operating a landfill site from 1970 to 1979 in a manner that: 1) caused leachate to flow into Illinois waters, creating a water pollution hazard, and 2) contaminated the groundwater and subsurface water with waste material, constituting a public nuisance. See id. at 1028. The Illinois EPA subsequently contracted with an engineering firm to monitor the site and implement a clean-up plan. The firm completed performance of this contract in 1986. Defendants filed third party complaints in 1987 alleging that the firm contributed to the pollution hazard at the site by negligently conducting monitoring operations and by drilling in a manner that caused the discharge of contaminants into the groundwater. The engineering firm argued that its liability and the defendants’ liability did not arise out of the same injury, but the Illinois Supreme Court rejected this argument. See id. at 1029-30. Because the State alleged that defendants created a water pollution hazard, and defendants alleged that the engineering firm’s conduct contributed to the same water pollution hazard, the court determined that the trier of fact could find that the conduct of the defendants and [the firm], although separate in time, contributed to produce the same injury for purposes of the Contribution Act. Id. at 1030. Bickel attempts to distinguish Brockman in the context of the requirement that a third party defendant must be liable in tort to the plaintiff in order to be liable for contribution. They allege that because the damage to the environment was an ongoing injury, the engineering firm’s negligence occurred at the same time as the injury alleged in the complaint, and thus it was proper for the court to determine that the third party tortfeasor was liable to the plaintiff at the time of defendants’ injurious conduct. This is both an incorrect interpretation of the case and an unnecessary argument. We have already explained that, under Illinois law, it is possible for a defendant to seek contribution from a tortfeasor who injured the plaintiff subsequent to the defendant--the injury does not have to be concurrent. See Vroegh, 651 N.E.2d at 125; see also Brockman, 592 N.E.2d at 1030. A broad characterization of the injury thus seems appropriate here. The district court’s discussion focused on one particular injury: the inability of the Alpers to obtain relief for Avers’ joining DTS to run a wholesale diverting business. Alper v. Altheimer & Gray, No. 97 C 1200, 2000 WL 1006740, at  (N.D.