Firestone Financial LLC v. John R. Meyer

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712
FIRESTONE FINANCIAL LLC,
Plaintiff‐Appellee,
v.
J OHN R. MEYER ,
Defendant‐Appellant.
____________________
Appeals from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 13 C 7241 — Amy J. St. Eve, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED J ANUARY 24, 2018 — D ECIDED FEBRUARY 1, 2018
____________________
Before BAUER , KANNE , and BARRETT , Circuit Judges.
P ER C URIAM. Firestone Financial sued John Meyer as guar‐
antor of defaulted loans. Meyer, proceeding pro se, asserted
promissory estoppel as both a defense and counterclaim. Af‐
ter an earlier trip to this court, see Firestone Fin. Corp. v. Meyer,
796 F.3d 822 (7th Cir. 2015), the district court entered sum‐
mary judgment for Firestone. Meyer filed two notices of ap‐
peal, and we consolidated the appeals. We affirm the judg‐
ment in 17‐1611 because a reasonable jury could not conclude

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2 Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712
that Meyer has satisfied any of the three elements of promis‐
sory estoppel. We dismiss 17‐1712 as duplicative.
I. BACKGROUND
Meyer, a disbarred lawyer, is the founder and owner of
three Illinois companies: J H M Equipment Leasing Company
(“JHM”), which installed and maintained laundry machines
in apartment buildings; Dolphin Laundry Services (“Dol‐
phin”), which sold commercial laundry equipment to JHM
and other customers; and J H Meyer Enterprises, which oper‐
ated a laundry facility.
In 2012 and 2013, Firestone Financial Corporation fi‐
nanced JHM’s business with four loans totaling about
$250,000. (The lender, a Massachusetts corporation, later
merged with appellee Firestone Financial LCC.) Because JHM
obtained its equipment from Dolphin at little or no cost, the
loans to JHM actually financed Dolphin’s purchases from the
manufacturer. Firestone retained a security interest in JHM’s
assets. Dolphin, J H Meyer Enterprises, and Meyer also guar‐
anteed JHM’s loan obligations.
In 2013 Firestone sued JHM for defaulting on its repay‐
ment obligations and Meyer and his other two corporations
for breaching the loan guaranties. The defendants raised the
affirmative defense and counterclaim of promissory estoppel.
They asserted that in November 2012, after Firestone had al‐
ready issued JHM two loans of about $45,000 each, Firestone’s
Vice President for Business Development, Dan McAllister,
told Meyer that Firestone would set up a $500,000 line of
credit for JHM. He then made the promise that underlies the
estoppel defense and counterclaim: McAllister assured Meyer

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Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712 3
that, until the line of credit was established, Firestone would
finance “any” equipment that JHM needed on the “same” and
“identical terms” to the first two loans. Firestone issued its
third loan to JHM, this one for $98,000, in February 2013. After
McAllister left Firestone that spring, Firestone’s CEO ap‐
proved a final loan, for $66,000. The defendants assert that
Firestone’s refusal to issue further loans, as McAllister sup‐
posedly promised, harmed them. Specifically, without further
loans, Dolphin could not pay a manufacturer, Maytag, for ma‐
chines that Dolphin had committed to buy; Maytag then re‐
fused to sell equipment to Meyer’s companies, costing the de‐
fendants “millions.”
The case proceeded to judgment quickly. After the defend‐
ants answered the complaint, their lawyer withdrew, and the
district court entered default judgment against the three un‐
represented corporations. This left the claim of breach of
guaranty against Meyer, who was now pro se. The court later
dismissed Meyer’s counterclaim and entered summary judg‐
ment for Firestone. It agreed with Firestone that Meyer’s alle‐
gations were implausible because no financial firm would
commit orally to loaning substantial sums to a startup. The
court accepted Firestone’s argument that the dismissal of
Meyer’s counterclaim doomed the defense as well. With no
defense remaining, the court entered a judgment for Fire‐
stone.
But the case was not over. Meyer appealed, and we re‐
versed the dismissal of the counterclaim, reasoning that the
district court had misapplied Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662
(2009), and Bell Atlantic Corporation v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544
(2007). On remand Meyer conceded Firestone’s main allega‐
tions. He admitted that JHM “did not make all the payments

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4 Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712
set forth in the payment terms of the four promissory notes”
and that he “made no payments” to Firestone. He also clari‐
fied his promissory‐estoppel defense and counterclaim,
which in his view excused non‐payment. Both were based on
McAllister’s “promise that Firestone would fund JHM’s
equipment purchases while Dan McAllister worked on put‐
ting in place the line of credit.” Meyer also asserted a new de‐
fense: Firestone sold some collateral in a commercially unrea‐
sonable manner. This collateral consisted of over 300 laundry
machines that JHM had placed in buildings owned by Pangea
Ventures, LLC. JHM contracted with Pangea to maintain the
machines and share with Pangea the revenue they generated.
Firestone sold the machines to Pangea for $40,000. Meyer
swore that it would have been more commercially reasonable
to sell the machines to a buyer who could take over the con‐
tract.
The district court again entered summary judgment for
Firestone. The court ruled that Meyer’s reliance on McAllis‐
ter’s alleged promise of additional funding was “unreasona‐
ble as a matter of law.” It also found that Meyer could not
establish his damages because he presented no bank state‐
ments, accounting records, or invoices from the relevant
years. Finally, the court rejected as undeveloped and unsub‐
stantiated the argument that Firestone’s sale of the laundry
machines to Pangea was commercially unreasonable. The
judgment was for $427,131 against Meyer.
After the district court entered summary judgment for
Firestone, Meyer filed a notice of appeal (No. 17‐1611) and a
document he styled a “Motion Under Rule 52(b) to Amend
the Findings and Judgment of [the] Court.” The court denied
the motion as procedurally improper, adding that it would

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Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712 5
deny the motion on the merits even if construed as a Rule
59(e) motion. Two days later Meyer filed an “amended notice
of appeal” (No. 17‐1712) in which he specified that he sought
to appeal both the district court’s entry of summary judgment
for Firestone and its denial of his post judgment motion. We
consolidated the two appeals for decision.
II. DISCUSSION
We begin with two preliminary matters. First, appeal
17‐1712 is duplicative. Meyer raises no arguments about the
denial of his post‐judgment motion. And if he had, he did not
need to file a second appeal to raise them. See Borrero v. City
of Chicago, 456 F.3d 698, 699–70 (7th Cir. 2006). We therefore
dismiss 17‐1712.
That brings us to 17‐1611, which presents a threshold
question of which state’s law governs Meyer’s promissory‐es‐
toppel defense and counterclaim. Our prior decision used Il‐
linois law, yet the district court on remand applied Massachu‐
setts law, and the parties now seem to agree that Massachu‐
setts law governs under a choice‐of‐law provision in the guar‐
anties. We follow the parties’ lead but note that the answer to
this choice‐of‐law question makes little practical difference
here. Compare Dumas v. Infinity Broad. Corp., 416 F.3d 671, 677
(7th Cir. 2005) (“Under Illinois law, a claim for promissory es‐
toppel will only succeed where all the other elements of a con‐
tract exist, but consideration is lacking.”), with Neuhoff v.
Marvin Lumber & Cedar Co., 370 F.3d 197, 203–04 (1st Cir. 2004)
(explaining that, under Massachusetts law, “promissory es‐
toppel is nothing but a contract absent consideration”).

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6 Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712
On to the merits, where Meyer argues that the district
court erred in entering summary judgment on his promis‐
sory‐estoppel defense and counterclaim. He insists that he
reasonably believed that, until Firestone set up JHM’s line of
credit, Firestone would fund any equipment purchase re‐
quested, on the “same” terms as the first two loans, “without
further question, the signing of documents, or any further re‐
view of Meyer’s finances.” To get past summary judgment on
this defense and counterclaim, Meyer needs evidence that (1)
Firestone made an unambiguous promise to Meyer for unlim‐
ited funding, (2) he took or refrained from action in reasona‐
ble reliance on the promise, and (3) he suffered damage as a
result. See Anzalone v. Admin. Office of Trial Court, 932 N.E.2d
774, 786 (Mass. 2010). A reasonable jury reviewing this record
could not find that Meyer carried his burden of proof for any
of these elements.
First, Meyer cannot show that McAllister made an unam‐
biguous promise of unlimited funding on the “same” terms
used as the first two loans. Such a promise does not even
make sense because the first two loans had different principal
amounts ($45,788 vs. $44,165) and interest rates (9.25% vs.
10.75%). And the third loan differed from the first two. The
first two loans called for 36 monthly payments, but the third
loan, issued in February 2013 for yet another amount—
$98,000—called for 60 monthly payments. “Particularly in the
case of a sizable commercial loan, it is unlikely that oral un‐
derstandings which leave essential terms to future negotia‐
tion will support an enforceable loan agreement.” Lambert v.
Fleet Nat’l Bank, 865 N.E.2d 1091, 1097 (Mass. 2007) (quoting
Coolidge Bank & Trust Co. v. First Ipswich Co., 401 N.E.2d 165,
165–66 (Mass. App. Ct. 1980)). Because the parties negotiated

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Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712 7
different terms for each loan, there was no unambiguous
promise for unlimited, identical loans.
Moving on to the second element, Meyer contends that
Dolphin purchased machines from Maytag in reliance on
McAllister’s promise. But this argument suffers from two
problems, one evidentiary and one legal. First, the promise
could not have prompted Meyer to guarantee all the loans. He
guaranteed the first two loans before McAllister made the al‐
leged promise, and he guaranteed the fourth loan after Fire‐
stone’s CEO told him that Firestone would issue no more
loans to JHM. At most, the promise of additional funding fac‐
tored into Meyer’s decision to guarantee the third loan. But
even as to that (or any) loan, any reliance by Meyer was un‐
reasonable as a matter of law. As the district court correctly
stated, “[i]t would be incongruous if Firestone had a review
process for the $500,000 line of credit but simultaneously
would effectively grant an unlimited line of credit by agreeing
to provide JHM with unlimited loans for an indeterminate
amount of time.” And if Meyer misapprehended McAllister’s
promise in November 2012, that misapprehension should
have been dispelled in February 2013 when JHM’s third loan
request went through Firestone’s regular underwriting pro‐
cess.
Finally, as to the damages element, Meyer submitted in‐
sufficient evidence to show that Firestone’s promise caused
“several million dollars” in harm. Meyer submitted no busi‐
ness records from the relevant years to support his contention
that Firestone caused any damage to his companies. Meyer
replies that he lost the records when his computer was stolen
and his email account was closed for non‐payment. But this
loss is not Firestone’s fault and does not relieve Meyer of his

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8 Nos. 17‐1611 & 17‐1712
evidentiary burden. Because a jury would have to speculate
about damages, a reasonable jury could not conclude that
Meyer was damaged as a result of any reliance on McAllis‐
ter’s alleged promise.
Meyer’s brief concludes with an undeveloped argument.
He contends that Firestone did not properly mitigate its dam‐
ages because Firestone’s sale of the laundry machine collat‐
eral to Pangea was not commercially reasonable. Under Mas‐
sachusetts law, a secured party that disposes of collateral en‐
joys a rebuttable presumption of commercial reasonableness.
See MASS . G EN. LAWS ch. 106 §§ 9‐610, 9‐626(a)(1). Meyer has
not rebutted this presumption. He insists that the machines
would have been worth as much as $710,000 to a third party
who could have taken over JHM’s contract with Pangea. But
he appears to base this valuation on an off‐the‐cuff guess of
the revenues that the laundry machines might have gener‐
ated. With no business records from the relevant years, a jury
would have no reliable way of determining whether Meyer’s
estimation is accurate. In any event, Meyer identifies no other
party who would have paid more than Pangea did for the col‐
lateral.
III. CONCLUSION
Because all three elements of Meyer’s defense and coun‐
terclaim fail, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment in ap‐
peal 17‐1611 and DISMISS appeal 17‐1712 as duplicative.

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