Opinion ID: 1251568
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants' affirmative defense of misrepresentation.

Text: Defendants' second affirmative defense alleged that: At the time of the signing of Exhibit A, and at all times thereafter, the Union led defendant to believe that the contract applied only to Union members employed on Union construction projects. Defendant complied with the trust provisions of the contract with respect to such persons. Any further requirement was the result of the misrepresentations of the Union and was not the subject of an agreement by defendant and is therefore unenforceable. These allegations would appear to be an attempt to plead that the contract signed by defendant Kelly was induced by misrepresentations and was therefore unenforceable, at least as applied to non-union employees, regardless of whether the misrepresentations were fraudulent or innocent. If the defendants and the union had agreed that contributions to the union trust funds be made only for union members and if that was a part of the agreement between the parties, a representation by the union to that effect would not have been a false representation so as to render the agreement unenforceable. In such an event, however, defendants would have had a defense to the action by the union insofar as it sought to require contributions by defendants for non-union employees. Such a defense, however, would not have been one of misrepresentation. In apparent recognition of this problem, defendants say that:    The defense is that the alleged agreement signed by defendant covered only union members on union construction projects. Defendant therefore wished initally [sic] only to present evidence of the actual coverage. Only in the event that the Union intended any further contractual requirement does misrepresentation come into play. The difficulty with that contention, however, is that defendants do not allege that it had been agreed between the parties that the contributions to the trust funds be made only for union members. Had that been the allegation, defendants could have offered evidence in support of that allegation; the union could have offered evidence to the contrary and that issue could then have been decided by a finding of fact on that conflicting evidence. In that process, any problems involving the parol evidence rule could also have been resolved, including problems arising from provisions of the trust agreements attached to the master labor agreements which defendant Kelly, by signing the memorandum agreement, agreed to observe. [16] Defendants did not, however, allege that such was the agreement between the parties, but only that the union represented that the agreement signed by defendant Kelly covered only union employees. Such being the extent of defendants' allegations, it would appear that such allegations failed to allege facts sufficient to constitute such a defense. In any event, any error in sustaining a demurrer to defendants' second affirmative defense as a defense intended to permit defendants to present evidence of the actual coverage was not prejudicial for three reasons: (1) As previously stated, in determining whether a ruling on pleadings is prejudicial this court may look to the evidence and to the record as a whole; [17] (2) Defendants had previously denied allegations of plaintiffs' complaint that the terms of the agreement between the parties were as set forth in the written agreement attached to plaintiffs' complaint. Under that denial defendants were entitled to offer evidence of what they contended to be the terms of the actual agreement, without the necessity of pleading such terms as an affirmative defense; [18] (3) the terms of the written trust fund agreements offered in evidence by the union, and not controverted by any evidence offered by defendants, make it clear that contributions to the union trust funds were required for any employee whether union or non-union. [19] For these reasons we hold that there was no prejudicial error in sustaining plaintiffs' demurrer to defendants' second affirmative defense. [20]