Urban Sites of Chicago leased property to Crown Castle USA and T-Mobile USA. The parties had a disagreement about the terms of the lease, so Urban sued Crown and T-Mobile. Crown and T-Mobile counter-sued Urban.
Crown and T-Mobile asked for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. They argued that the lease had been modified to their benefit. Urban, arguing there was insufficient consideration to support the modification and relying on a company representative’s affidavit, then asked for reconsideration of the summary judgments, which the trial court denied.
Urban appealed. But the First District Illinois Appellate Court agreed with Crown and T-Mobile. The appellate court refused to even consider Urban’s affidavit because it was “submitted … for the first time in its [Urban’s] motion to reconsider … [and] was not part of the summary judgment process and was Urban Sites’ only attempt to present a basis for its lack of consideration argument. We cannot consider this document because the scope of appellate review of a summary judgment motion is limited to the record as it existed when the circuit court ruled on the summary judgment motion.”
Read the whole opinion, Urban Sites of Chicago v. Crown Castle USA, 2012 IL App (1st) 111880 (10/9/12), by clicking here.