Jim Wideikis of Costello Ginex & Wideikis just obtained summary judgment, completely protecting his client in a high stakes lawsuit with seven-figure damage exposure and potential punitive damages, arising from losses caused by an international phishing fraud operation.
Jim’s clients, NRT LLC, Realogy Operations LLC and Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC ("the Coldwell Entities") were sued for common law negligence, negligence per se (based on violations of the Gramm Leach Bliley Act), and breach of contract after a client alleged the Coldwell Entities failed to reasonably secure her non-public, personal information.
This client purchased a home worth over a million dollars in Wheaton, Illinois. Allegedly, a third-party hacker accessed the computer system of the Coldwell Entities, the title insurance issuer Fidelity, or the real estate attorney, but at the time of judgment it was unclear who, if anyone, was hacked. The hacker, pretending to be a Coldwell Banker realtor, sent a spoofed email to the purchaser (a Chinese national living in Beijing at the time), advising her to wire the money to an account in Indonesia. The wire was effectuated, as directed by the fraudster, and the money was lost.
The case was filed in 2015 and underwent significant motion practice for years and multiple changing of judges. Jim was brought in as trial counsel for the Coldwell Entities in 2019. Through multiple document productions and Chinese interpreters, Jim learned that the plaintiff's bank account from which the money was wired to Indonesia was owned by “Victoria International Company, Ltd.”, a now defunct Chinese company. Through a deposition of the plaintiff's daughter, Jim learned that the funds used to pay for the entire transaction were procured through the Victoria company, and the plaintiff’s daughter testified that Victoria was owned solely by her father. Jim and the other defense lawyers attempted to depose the plaintiff and her husband, but they were prevented from doing so by Chinese Law and Chinese imposed COVID travel restrictions.
Jim moved for summary judgment claiming that the Plaintiff was not damaged if the allegedly stolen funds belonged to Victoria, and therefore the Plaintiff lacked standing to bring her case. Plaintiff and her husband filed affidavits claiming that the Plaintiff was a shareholder in Victoria and the stolen funds were Plaintiff’s legitimate shareholder income based on her wages, dividends, and other distributions. Jim argued that these affidavits did not comply with Illinois Supreme Court Rule 191(a) and the court agreed, striking Plaintiff and her husband’s affidavits, and finding that Plaintiff’s conclusions were not supported by any facts or documents upon which Plaintiff relied. The court ultimately ruled that the individual Plaintiff was not a proper party, was not damaged, had no standing to bring the claim, and if any party could sue, it was the (now defunct) Victoria corporation.
Jim remarked on the victory, "Summary judgment motions are tough to get these days. My clients are obviously happy with the outcome, and so am I."
