Opinion ID: 204752
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Park District's Cross-Appeal on the Contract Claim

Text: The Park District challenges the judgment against it for breach of contract even though damages were assessed at a nominal $1. The district court held that Commissioner Burroughs's casual remarkYou're still there, aren't you? That's all you need to do.created an implied-in-fact contract requiring the Park District to give Kelley reasonable notice before reconfiguring Wildflower Works. Although factual findings about the existence of a contract are reviewed for clear error, ReMapp Int'l Corp. v. Comfort Keyboard Co., 560 F.3d 628, 633 (7th Cir.2009), there is a threshold legal question here about the commissioner's unilateral authority to bind the Park District to a contract. Our review is de novo. See Manning v. United States, 546 F.3d 430, 432 (7th Cir.2008). Two statutes guide our analysis. The first is the Chicago Park District Act, which provides in relevant part that [t]he commissioners of [the Park District] constitute the corporate authorities thereof, and have full power to manage and control all the officers and property of the district, and all parks, driveways, boulevards and parkways maintained by such district or committed to its care and custody. 70 ILL. COMP. STAT. 1505/7.01. The district court noted the statute's use of the plural commissioners and authorities and concluded from this that each individual commissioner was a separate corporate authority with the power to unilaterally bind the Park District. This conclusion strains the statutory language and ignores how public bodies customarily operate. It also contradicts another provision in the Illinois Park District Code, which applies to all Illinois park districts and must be read in conjunction with the Chicago Park District Act. The Illinois Park District Code states: No member of the board of any park district . . . shall have power to create any debt, obligation, claim or liability, for or on account of said park district. . . except with the express authority of said board conferred at a meeting thereof and duly recorded in a record of its proceedings. 70 ILL. COMP. STAT. 1205/4-6 (emphasis added). When read together, these statutes confirm that there is only one corporate authority of the Chicago Park Districtits Board of Commissionersand that individual commissioners cannot unilaterally bind the Park District's Board to a contract without express Board approval. There is no evidence that the Park District's Board of Commissioners authorized Commissioner Burroughs to enter into a contract with Kelley. Moreover, Illinois law provides that ultra vires contracts entered into by municipal corporations are invalid, see, e.g., McMahon v. City of Chicago, 339 Ill.App.3d 41, 273 Ill.Dec. 447, 789 N.E.2d 347, 350 (2003), so Commissioner Burroughs's offhand remark cannot have created a valid implied-in-fact contract. The judgment for Kelley on the contract claim was premised on legal error; the Park District was entitled to judgment on this claim. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment in favor of the Park District on the VARA claim; we REVERSE the judgment in favor of Kelley on the contract claim and REMAND with instructions to enter judgment for the Park District.