The appellant (Guarantee Trust) had forwarded reinsurance premiums to the reinsurer to be held in a custodial account for the payment of claims. Guarantee Trust initially sued Kribbs, the founder of the reinsurer, alleging that he acted in concert with an employee inside Guarantee Trust’s organization to improperly obtain the funds from the account for Kribbs’ own use. During depositions (six years after filing suit), Guarantee Trust discovered the identity of two of its own employees, whom Guarantee Trust named in its re-filed action after having voluntarily dismissed the initial complaint. To address the running of the statute of limitations, Guarantee Trust argued that the limitations period was tolled due to fraudulent concealment. The trial court, however, dismissed Guarantee Trust’s claims, finding that Guarantee Trust provided no reason why it could not have discovered its claims against the two employees sooner through reasonable diligence.
On appeal, the court addressed the tolling issue under both the discovery rule and fraudulent concealment, and affirmed the circuit court’s decision. The court found it was significant that Guarantee Trust knew at the time it filed its original complaint that one of its own employees was involved in the alleged wrongdoing, and that Guarantee Trust had been provided in 2008 with discovery responses disclosing a short list of potential witnesses that included the two employees later addressed at depositions. The court concluded that the trial court correctly determined that Guarantee Trust failed the “reasonable diligence” test. The Court also found no fraudulent concealment during discovery that would toll the statute of limitations. Guarantee Trust Life Ins. Co. v. Kribbs, Case No. 15 L 11262, (Ill. App. Ct. Dec. 29, 2016).
This post written by Gail Jankowski.
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