Opinion ID: 702308
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: tortious interference with prospective business advantage

Text: 94 The jury found for Cooper on its claim for tortious interference with prospective business advantage, App. 4795-96, but the jury did not award any actual damages on this claim. Id. The jury did, however, award $3 million in punitive damages. Id. As the district court explained to the jury, Cooper's tortious interference claim was the only claim on which punitive damages were available. App. 3921. 95 Under New Jersey law, the elements of a claim for tortious interference with prospective business advantage are as follows: 1) a prospective economic relationship from which the plaintiff has a reasonable expectation of gain; 2) intentional and unjustifiable interference with that expectation, and 3) a causative relationship between the interference and the loss of the prospective gain. See Printing Mart-Morristown v. Sharp Electronics Corp., 116 N.J. 739, 563 A.2d 31, 37 (1989). 96 Cooper based its tortious interference claim on two independent sets of alleged facts: (1) Amana's sale of products directly to P.C. Richard and (2) other conduct in which Amana engaged after the district court preliminarily enjoined Amana from terminating the Cooper franchise. 24 App. 3912-13. The jury returned a verdict for Cooper on both bases, 25 App. 4795-96, and the district court entered judgment in accordance with the verdict. App. 5703-11. 97 Assuming arguendo that there was legally sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding of tortious interference, Amana contends that the award of $3 million in punitive damages must be reversed because the jury, by awarding $0 in actual damages, found that Cooper suffered no injury. We agree with Amana's argument. 98 Under New Jersey law, a plaintiff must suffer some injury in order to recover punitive damages. See Nappe v. Anschelewitz, Barr, Ansell & Bonello, 97 N.J. 37, 477 A.2d 1224, 1232 (1984) ([P]unitive damages may be assessed ... where some injury, loss, or detriment to the plaintiff has occurred.) (emphasis in original); Lightning Lube, Inc. v. Witco Corp., 4 F.3d 1153, 1195 (3d Cir.1993). Despite the jury's finding of $0 in actual damages, Cooper makes two arguments that it did suffer injury and that punitive damages were therefore permitted. First, Cooper claims that the finding of harm necessary to an award of punitive damages need not be monetarily measurable but can be intangible or unquantifiable. Second, it claims that the jury molded the breach of contract verdict with the tortious interference verdict and that we should infer that the jury did award some actual damages for Amana's tortious interference. 99 As for Cooper's argument that it suffered intangible injury and was therefore entitled to a punitive award, the New Jersey Supreme Court has explained that a plaintiff need not show injury which gives rise to compensatory damages in order to receive punitive damages. See Nappe, 477 A.2d at 1231-32. The question we must answer is whether Cooper may recover punitive damages in the absence of an award of even nominal damages. 100 In Lightning Lube, we considered whether Lightning Lube, a lube oil dealer, could recover punitive damages from Witco, an oil equipment supplier, on Lightning Lube's fraud and misrepresentation claim where the jury found that the plaintiff had sustained no damages. We held that in light of the jury's refusal to award nominal damages to the plaintiff, we could infer that the plaintiff did not suffer sufficient injury to warrant an award of punitive damages. We explained: 101 Inasmuch as the jury did not find sufficient injury to award nominal damages on this claim, the ... fraud cannot sustain an award of punitive damages. 102 Lightning Lube, 4 F.3d at 1195. Relying on Lightning Lube, Amana contends that because the jury did not find sufficient injury to award even nominal damages to Cooper, the tortious interference claim cannot sustain a punitive award. 103 The district court rejected Amana's argument by seeking to distinguish Lightning Lube. App. 5708. Whereas neither party in the current case requested a nominal damages instruction, the jury charge in Lightning Lube contained the following instruction: 104 If you find that the defendant has violated the legal rights of the plaintiff in accordance with the law upon which I have instructed you, and if you find that the plaintiff has proven it has sustained damages but they are not computable, you may enter an award of nominal damages. 105 App. 5708 (district court citing Lightning Lube jury instructions). Based upon this instruction, it was clear that the jury knew to award nominal damages expressly if it desired to do so, Lightning Lube, 4 F.3d at 1195, and therefore the jury's failure to award nominal damages in that case implied that the jury did not find any injury. In the current case, the district court noted, no instructions on nominal damages were sought or given, and the district court therefore opined that the jury's finding of $0 in damages on Cooper's tortious interference claim could not be read to imply a finding that Cooper had suffered no damages as result of Amana's tortious interference. App. 5710. In addition, the district court stated that it could be inferred that the jury found that Cooper suffered actual harm because the jury awarded punitive damages after being instructed that such damages could not be awarded unless some harm to the plaintiff has occurred, even if intangible or unquantifiable. App. 3922. Therefore, the district court held that the jury found that Cooper did suffer sufficient injury to warrant punitive damages. 106 We find the district court's reasoning unconvincing. Much like the jury in this case, the Lightning Lube jury was instructed that it could award punitive damages only if the defendant ha[d] committed fraud or misrepresentation which had caused plaintiff damage. App. 5721 (emphasis added). Yet despite this instruction, we held that the jury's punitive damages award was improper because the jury there, as here, awarded $0 in actual damages. Thus, the mere fact that the punitive damages instructions in this case required a finding of actual harm is insufficient to sustain the punitive damages award. 107 Moreover, we do not think that the fact that the Lightning Lube jury was specifically made aware of the availability of nominal damages, App. 5708, can justify a contrary result. We decline to accept Cooper's invitation to place the burden on the defendant to request a nominal damages instruction. Cooper was the party seeking a finding of actual injury and, as such, bore the responsibility of requesting a nominal damages instruction if it wanted the jury to consider that option. Of course, Cooper may well have decided for tactical reasons that it did not want the jury to consider that option. But whether Cooper failed to request an instruction on nominal damages by choice or inadvertence, it should bear the consequences. Because Cooper did not request such an instruction, it cannot now contend that we should infer a finding of nominal damages. See Walker v. Anderson Electrical Connectors, 944 F.2d 841, 844-45 (11th Cir.1991) (holding that plaintiff was not entitled to a presumption of nominal damages when she had failed to request them), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 1043, 122 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993); 26 Sims v. Mulcahy, 902 F.2d 524, 535 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 897, 111 S.Ct. 249, 112 L.Ed.2d 207 (1990). 27 108 We next address Cooper's contention that the jury molded the $0 tortious interference verdict with the $2 million breach of contract verdict and in fact awarded substantial compensatory damages on the tortious interference claim. Cooper maintains that because there was evidence in the record that Cooper lost $1,959,000 as a result of Amana's direct sales to P.C. Richard, App. 4607, and because there was evidence in the record that Cooper lost $41,000 as a result of Amana's allegedly tortious post-injunction conduct, App. 4611, we should infer that the jury's $2 million breach of contract award was really a molding of its breach of contract verdict and its tortious interference verdict. 109 In support of its argument, Cooper relies on Universal Computers (Systems) Ltd. v. Datamedia Corp., 653 F.Supp. 518 (D.N.J.1987), aff'd, 838 F.2d 1208 (3d Cir.1988) (no published opinion). In Datamedia, the jury found for the plaintiff on several theories, one of which, fraud, could have supported an award of punitive damages. The jury, however, did not fill in the damages line on its special verdict form for any of the theories except the first one and instead left the line next to all the remaining theories, including fraud, blank. See id. at 532-34. Concluding that the jury had misunderstood the verdict form and had aggregated all the damages on a single line, the district court held that in actuality the jury had awarded actual damages for fraud and that the award of punitive damages could be upheld. See id. at 530. Of course, Datamedia is not binding on us and, even if it were, it would be inapplicable here. In this case, the jury did not leave a blank next to the line for tortious interference; instead the jury wrote $0. App. 4795-96. In the face of such an express finding of $0 damages, we refuse to infer that the jury molded its verdict and in fact awarded actual damages for tortious interference. 110 This result is buttressed by the fact that the sum total of Cooper's alleged losses from its contract claim combined with Cooper's alleged losses from its tortious interference claim do not really equal $2 million, as Cooper erroneously suggests. Although there was evidence in the record that Cooper lost $1,959,000 as a result of Amana's direct sales to just P.C. Richard, App. 4607, there was also evidence in the record that Cooper lost $2,001,000 as a result of Amana's direct sales to all of Cooper's local retail dealers (i.e., P.C. Richard plus the other local retailers). App. 4606. Since the breach of contract verdict question on the special verdict form asked the jury to consider Amana's direct sales to P.C. Richard and other dealers, App. 4794 (emphasis added), the facts do not support Cooper's inventive theory that the jury aggregated Cooper's claimed breach of contract damages with Cooper's claimed tortious interference damages. Accordingly, we hold that, pursuant to the jury's verdict, Cooper suffered no actual harm as a result of the tortious interference claim, and we therefore reverse the district court's entry of the $3 million judgment for punitive damages in favor of Cooper and remand for the entry of a judgment of $0. 28