Opinion ID: 4448635
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Consumer Fraud Act Claim

Text: Next up is the claim under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, 815 ILL. COMP. STAT. 505/1 et seq. The Consumer Fraud Act “protect[s] consumers … against fraud, unfair methods of competition, and other unfair and deceptive business practices.” Robinson v. 10 No. 18-2150 Toyota Motor Credit Corp., 775 N.E.2d 951, 960 (Ill. 2002). To prevail on a claim under the Act, “a plaintiﬀ must plead and prove that the defendant committed a deceptive or unfair act with the intent that others rely on the deception, that the act occurred in the course of trade or commerce, and that it caused actual damages.” Vanzant v. Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Inc., 934 F.3d 730, 736 (7th Cir. 2019). No deception is alleged here. The plaintiﬀs argue instead that the PDF fee is unfair. A trade practice may be deemed unfair if it (1) “oﬀends public policy”; (2) is “immoral, unethical, oppressive or unscrupulous”; or (3) “causes substantial injury to consumers.” Id. at 739. It’s not necessary to establish all three criteria. “A practice may be unfair because of the degree to which it meets one of the criteria or because to a lesser extent it meets all three.” Robinson, 775 N.E.2d at 961 (quotation marks omitted). This claim fails for several reasons. First, it appears to rest almost entirely on the alleged violation of section 22.1. That is, the plaintiﬀs allege that Sudler and HomeWise violated the Condominium Act and thereby violated Illinois public policy. As we’ve explained, however, it’s the condominium association’s duty to furnish the required disclosure documents to unit owners on request; as a corollary, it may charge a reasonable fee for doing so. § 605/22.1(b), (c). And although the association may retain a professional management ﬁrm to handle the day-to-day operation of the property, it cannot outsource its statutory duties to the propertymanagement company. Henderson v. Lofts at Lake Arlington Towne Condo. Ass’n, 105 N.E.3d 1, 15 (Ill. App. Ct. 2018) (holding that an association retains a statutory duty under No. 18-2150 11 the Condo Act to care for common areas even though it hired a property manager). To be sure, the Condominium Act establishes standards of conduct for property-management ﬁrms. See generally 765 ILL. COMP. STAT. 605/18.7. But this section of the Act explicitly precludes “a cause of action by a unit owner … against a community association manager or the ﬁrm of a community association manager,” while preserving “any right of action by a unit owner” against the association’s “board of directors under existing law.” § 605/18.7(g)(1)–(2). Given these headwinds, the plaintiﬀs try a diﬀerent tack. They argue that Sudler and HomeWise can be liable for violating the Consumer Fraud Act because they acted on behalf of the condominium associations to breach the associations’ duties under section 22.1. This argument distorts basic agency law; it is essentially “the reverse of vicarious liability.” Schur v. L.A. Weight Loss Ctrs., Inc., 577 F.3d 752, 766 (7th Cir. 2009). In Illinois, as elsewhere, a court “may not impute a duty the principal owed to a third party to an agent merely acting pursuant to duties it, in turn, owed to the principal.” Id. (applying Illinois law). Put slightly diﬀerently, “[w]hile the acts of an agent may be considered to be acts of the principal, acts of the principal are never imputed to the agent.” Stein v. Rio Parismina Lodge, 695 N.E.2d 518, 522 (Ill. App. Ct. 1998) (citation omitted). For an agent to be liable in tort to a third party harmed by the agent’s conduct, the agent must breach an independent duty that he owes to the third party. Schur, 577 F.3d at 766; see also RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF AGENCY § 7.02 (Am. Law Inst. 2006). Thus stripped of its Condominium Act premise, the Consumer Fraud Act claim rests on nothing more than a generic 12 No. 18-2150 allegation that HomeWise charged too much for a PDF of the disclosure documents. But the Illinois courts have held that “charging an unconscionably high price generally is insuﬃcient to establish a claim for unfairness.” Robinson, 775 N.E.2d at 961. The judge correctly dismissed this claim.