 |
2009 was the year in which work started on a Herculean concrete repair project and a much-needed laundry room, but many unit owners will remember it as the year the condo board at Marina City was at war with residents.
First there were the citations issued by the City of Chicago against Marina Towers Condominium Association – and its management company, Draper and Kramer, Inc. – for not allowing a unit owner to inspect financial records within three days of her written request. By early January, the dispute had lasted a year between MTCA and Mindy Verson, who had filed a consumer fraud complaint against the condo association on December 18, 2007. Just prior to a hearing on the complaint scheduled for January 30, 2008, attorneys for MTCA and Verson agreed to a schedule for allowing her to see some financial records. Under the watchful eye of an MTCA attorney, Verson was allowed to examine copies of documents and summaries of financial records from 2006 and 2007. She was not, however, allowed to make copies of the documents or see detailed records of attorney fees paid by the association in 2007. (Left) An Administrative Notice of Ordinance Violation dated December 2, 2008, in which the respondent is Marina Towers Condominium Association. It was served to Donna Leonard, president of MTCA. The citation is for violation of Section 13-72-080 of the Chicago Condominium Ordinance. “Respondent failed to allow condominium unit owner to inspect financial books/records of condo association within 3 business days of written request. Each day on which the respondent failed to allow [inspection] of records constitutes separate/distinct offense.” The violation, according to this citation, occurred on February 27, 2008. A similar notice of violation was issued to Draper & Kramer and served to residential property manager David Gantt. |
|
Through its attorney, former state legislator Ellis Levin, MTCA had denied the request, saying Verson had not given a “proper purpose.” Levin said legal bills are subject to attorney-client privilege and not available to unit owners, and that copies of his invoices to MTCA are not even included in the definition of “financial books and records” of the association.
Ellis Levin |
 |
According to an audit by an outside CPA firm, legal expenses incurred in 2007 by MTCA were 149 percent over budget. General legal fees were budgeted at $15,000 but $37,322 was spent. Legal fees related to collections were $38,405, or 54 percent over budget, and offset by legal fee income of just $19,624.
 |
Verson said she was suspicious of amounts paid to Levin because she had heard Levin claim, on three separate occasions, he was paid three different amounts for work on a lawsuit Verson and six other residents filed against MTCA in 2006. The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice in October 2006, meaning it could be refiled later after issues with the case were fixed.
Mindy Verson |
Are invoices from attorneys protected by attorney-client privilege?
In March 2008, Verson’s attorney, Leo Aubel, accused MTCA of reneging on the settlement reached in late January. In a letter to Ellis Levin, Aubel wrote, “Exclusion of records from Ms. Verson’s examination of financial books and records for calendar year 2007 was never part of our settlement agreement.”
But letting Verson see invoices from the condo association counsel put the attorneys in a difficult spot, according to MTCA attorney Daniel Meyer. The law says a condo association must allow unit owners to inspect its records, but doing so could violate attorney-client privilege.
|
“They are attempting to put my client in the position of choosing between the lesser of two evils,” he told Administrative Law Officer Jacqueline Stanley Lustig at a hearing on January 14, 2009.
Daniel Meyer |
 |
 |
Aubel said an invoice for legal fees is “the last place you’d want to put privileged information.” He said the confidential information could simply be redacted – obscured or removed – from the document given to unit owners. Aubel said Verson just wanted to know “who was paid, on what legal matters, when and how much.”
Leo Aubel |
On March 26, 2009, a settlement was reached between the City of Chicago and MTCA, ending the dispute. In exchange for the city dismissing its complaint against the condo association, MTCA agreed to allow Verson access to some of the documents she had been trying to see. Verson was allowed to see the records on May 7 and the case was “non-suited” at a hearing on May 12.
MTCA compromises on recording ban
Then there was the ban on unit owners recording meetings of the condo board. Though allowed by the Illinois Condominium Property Act, board members said allowing unit owners to record board meetings would hinder people from expressing opinions. The board banned recording of meetings, starting with the meeting on September 24, 2008. Owners were not allowed to comment before the rule was put into effect, and a tape recorder in use at the time was confiscated.
 |
On January 15, 2009, MTCA announced that video recordings of board meetings would be put on a web page accessible to unit owners only. The existence of video recordings, from discretely-mounted security cameras on the ceiling of a room leased by MTCA, was a surprise to many unit owners.
(Left) Four security cameras record a meeting of Marina Towers Condominium Association on June 16, 2008. |
The next month, on February 19, 2009, the board decided to post financial records on the password-protected website. The records would include monthly financial data such as summaries of revenue and expenses.
Parking disputes lead to $40 million lawsuit
It was quickly dismissed for being, said defense attorneys, “substantially insufficient in law,” but in 2008, Marina City’s condominium association, commercial property manager, and the company that parks vehicles were served a lawsuit with combined claim amounts of $40 million.
Edie Mathers and Joseph Mathers, owners of four condo units at Marina City, filed the lawsuit on October 1, 2008, suing Marina Towers Condominium Association for $10 million, Transwestern Commercial Services for $10 million, and System Parking for $20 million.
There were 29 separate claims against the defendants, but the dispute was mostly over an incident in 2006 in which Edie Mathers claimed an employee of System Parking assaulted her. It happened as she and her husband, Joseph, retrieved their vehicles on the plaza level of Marina City. However, it was Edie who was arrested by Chicago police, according to the civil complaint.
 |
Mathers said the employee, Yaw Akwaboah, struck her “across the face with a customer ticket receipt while reaching across her face while [Mathers] was speaking to the cashier.”
“At the same time,” she said, “Akwaboah bumped Edie Mathers with his fat body, trying to move her out of the way while she was taking care of business as a monthly customer.” Edie Mathers |
Not satisfied with System Parking’s handling of the incident, Mathers called Chicago police but was told they already had a call about the incident, which was apparently System Parking calling to complain about Mathers. Mathers said she was charged with battery based on a System Parking manager telling police that Mathers struck the manager “about the torso with an open hand causing minor redness and soreness.”
 |
The complaint offered glimpses into an ongoing dispute with System Parking over a truck the Mathers used for their video production business. Edie Mathers said she received a letter from System Parking informing her she could no longer park in their ramps at Marina City, effective November 1, 2006. Having to find another place to park, said Mathers, was not only inconvenient but “placed us in harm’s way.”
When she parked elsewhere, her truck, she said, was vandalized. When she tried to use short-term parking reserved for residents, police were called, and her truck was towed. (Left) View of plaza level between towers showing the glass enclosure of the parking cashier and escalator to the concourse. |
Mathers was claiming false charges, false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, discrimination, negligence, interference with her business, racism, breach of contract, personal injury, property damage, infliction of emotional distress, trademark infringement, violations of the Civil Rights Act, racial profiling, harassment, sexism, racism, restraint of trade, defamation, libel, and slander.
Case moved, then dismissed
On November 14, 2008, MTCA attorneys Daniel Meyer and Ellis Levin filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, saying it “is substantially insufficient in law.”
The $40 million in damages, they wrote, exceeded the amount allowed by the Circuit Court of Cook County. Also, because many of the counts in the complaint are covered by the Illinois Human Rights Act, the motion points out, they cannot be heard by any state court – and that the complaint “is neither plain nor concise.”
“While the plaintiffs do plead some ‘facts’ in the complaint, the story told by those ‘facts’ is difficult if not impossible to discern,” wrote Meyer and Levin. “Further, one cannot determine which defendants are party to which counts. Moreover, there does not appear to be any relation between the ‘facts’ set forth in the False Charges and Abuse of Process counts and the remaining counts of the complaint.”
“Instead, the complaint, which contains less than six pages of substance yet contains 29 purported causes of action, is pleaded entirely in conclusions,” wrote the MTCA attorneys.
On November 19, Judge William Maddux ordered the case transferred for trial to the Municipal Department, a Circuit Court division that normally hears civil cases seeking $30,000 or less.
Circuit Court Judge Lawrence O’Gara called the complaint “improper” and scolded Mathers for filing a $40 million lawsuit without an attorney but wished her “good luck” before dismissing the complaint on December 23, 2008. He gave her 28 days to re-file, preferably with the assistance of an attorney.
“You seem to have a grip on what you need to do,” he told her.
Case dismissed again
The Mathers had 28 days to re-file their lawsuit and on January 29, 2009, Judge O’Gara gave them another 28 days. But time ran out on February 24, 2009.
“It would be fundamentally unfair to let this case proceed any further,” said O’Gara after patiently listening to Edie Mathers plead for another ten days. She said after working diligently on it every day, she had found an attorney to take her case, but he had recently been ill and could not attend the hearing.
“I sympathize with your plight,” the judge told Mathers. “There’s finality in the law and we have reached finality in this case.”
 |
He said continuing the case would be unfair to the defendants, who “can’t have a $40 million lawsuit hanging over their heads.”
(Left) Noon hour crowd on Daley Plaza on June 4, 2014. |
In an emergency motion seeking another extension, Mathers claimed there was an altercation between her and MTCA attorney Ellis Levin at the January hearing. Mathers claimed Levin grabbed and twisted her arm, sending her to the hospital.
Judge O’Gara pointed out that if the bailiff had witnessed such an assault, Levin would have been arrested.
“This case has an intriguing history,” said O’Gara.
Lawsuit merit aside, $40 million was not the most for which MTCA had been sued. On April 26, 2004, Edie Mathers sued MTCA and then-president James Curtin for $1 billion. That lawsuit was dismissed on July 19, 2004.
MTCA takes aim at website about Marina City
Then there was the website. Started in 2007 by journalist Steven Dahlman, Marina City Online was one of the first, if not the first, “hyper-local” news sites in Chicago. As the name suggested, Marina City Online was focused on Marina City, mainly its history and its current events, and the surrounding area in the River North neighborhood of downtown Chicago. Many believed that if indeed Marina City was a small town, Marina City Online was its local newspaper.
 |
But the condo board was not buying it. Marina City Online, it claimed, was the website of a real estate agent who lived at Marina City and was the site’s only sponsor at the time, and that the site’s use of the name “Marina City” suggested it was operated by the condo board. The board threatened to fine the agent $1,000 plus $50 per day. The dispute appeared settled with a disclaimer on the website that it was not “sponsored by, endorsed by, or affiliated” with Marina Towers Condominium Association.
(Left) Screen capture of Marina City News, a hyper-local news website that evolved into Loop North News. |
Throughout the dispute, the condo association maintained it owned intellectual property rights to the entire complex, claiming “movie studios, advertising firms, and others” had sought permission from MTCA to use images of Marina City. The claims seemed to hopelessly conflate the association renting physical access to condo association property with granting permission to use the image of Marina City.
Details of parties obtaining such permission were never revealed. In 2008 and 2009 alone, Marina City appeared in commercial works created by Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau, Hyundai Motor America, and Paramount Pictures.
 |
When contacted by Marina City Online, none of these organizations could recall any contact with Marina Towers Condominium Association, let alone seeking permission from MTCA or paying a fee.
(Left) Rap artists R. Kelly and Beanie Sigel in a music video shot in 2007 on the roof of the west tower. |
Presented for nonprofit educational purposes