Frank Sullivan, Jr.

Professor of Practice, IU McKinney School of Law, and IU Bicentennial Professor

Justice, Indiana Supreme Court (1993–2012)

LL.M., University of Virginia School of Law (2001)

J.D., Indiana University Maurer School of Law (1982)

A.B., Dartmouth College (1972)

This Article surveys banking, business, and contract law decisions of the Indiana Supreme Court (“Supreme Court”) and Indiana Court of Appeals (“Court of Appeals”) between September 1, 2019, and August 31, 2020. This means that its coverage is pre-pandemic in the sense that almost all if not all the judgments and orders that are the subject of these appeals were entered by trial courts before the widespread curtailment of trial court activity due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This Article will not itemize every banking, business, and contract law case decided during the survey period. Instead, it will highlight cases illustrating some of the big-picture issues in these fields, as well as some practice pointers for both transaction lawyers and litigators. This Article also discusses the Supreme Court’s commercial courts initiative. And this Article reports on several important developments after the close of the survey period in which the Supreme Court issued decisions reversing the opinions of the Court of Appeals.

Many cases discussed in this Article are so-called not-for-publication “memorandum” decisions of the Court of Appeals. Whatever the current appellate rules may say about citing memorandum decisions,3 these opinions often establish new law; clarify, modify, or criticize existing law; or involve legal or factual issues of unique interest or substantial public importance. They contain critical guidance on Indiana law and cannot be ignored.

Read Professor Sullivan’s entire article here.