In February 2026, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted full summary judgment in favor of a construction lender represented by Rowe, Mercer & Hale LLP, dismissing a $35 million breach of contract claim in its entirety before trial. The decision ended litigation that had been pending for nearly three years and eliminated the entirety of the plaintiff’s claimed damages.
Background
The plaintiff, a real estate developer, alleged that the client lender had breached a construction loan agreement by, among other things, improperly withholding draw disbursements, failing to advance funds in accordance with the loan schedule, and accelerating the loan without justification. The developer sought $35 million in damages, including lost profits on the project and costs associated with project delays and abandonment.
The Motion for Summary Judgment
Rowe, Mercer & Hale moved for summary judgment on all claims, arguing that the undisputed record defeated each of the plaintiff’s theories as a matter of law. The firm advanced three core arguments.
First, the loan agreement expressly conditioned disbursements on the borrower’s satisfaction of specified conditions precedent, and the undisputed evidence showed that the borrower failed to meet those conditions at the time the disputed draws were requested. The lender’s withholding of funds was therefore contractually authorized.
Second, the acceleration of the loan was permissible under the agreement’s default provisions, which were triggered by the borrower’s own defaults—defaults the plaintiff did not dispute had occurred.
Third, the plaintiff’s damages theory rested on lost-profit projections that were speculative as a matter of law under Seventh Circuit and Illinois precedent, because the project had never generated revenue and the projections depended on multiple layers of uncertain assumptions.
The Court’s Ruling
The district court agreed with each of the firm’s arguments, granting summary judgment in full. The court found no triable issue of fact on any claim and entered judgment for the lender. The plaintiff’s request for leave to amend was denied.
Significance
Construction lending disputes often involve factually dense records and competing expert testimony. Obtaining full summary judgment in such a case requires identifying the legal issues that can be resolved on undisputed facts alone and building a record through discovery that isolates and defeats each damages theory before trial.
Roxy Mercer and Eleanor Rowe led the litigation team.