Opinion ID: 2402302
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Zero dollar damage award.

Text: Having prevailed on its civil conspiracy claim, Empire was entitled to be compensated for the harm caused by the tortious act committed in furtherance of the conspiracy. [18] Shortly before the damages trial, however, the trial court decided that Empire suffered no damages. The court started with the premise that Ocasio had committed the tort of conversion by stealing Empire's account records. Those records, however, had virtually no value unless Empire was servicing the Bank's accounts. The Bank, by contrast, was expressly authorized to withdraw its accounts from Empire at any time, for any reason. Thus, according to the trial court, the Bank's conduct was not wrongful, and could not be the source of harm for purposes of a conspiracy claim. The problem with the trial court's analysis is that it fails to connect Ocasio's theft of business records with the Bank's decision to recall its accounts from Empire. The trial testimony established that the information contained in the stolen business records was proprietary to Empire, and was critical to the uninterrupted collection of paying and legal accounts. Without those records, DBA, or any other new collection agency, would have had to start with the Bank's original, stale information and track down the debtors' current addresses, phone numbers, places of employment, etc. in an effort to procure a new repayment agreement with each debtor. Empire was one of the Bank's top performing collection agencies. Armistead may have had some loyalty to Ocasio, as he claimed, but the Bank is in business to make profits. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the Bank would not have transferred its accounts from Empire to DBA unless DBA had the stolen business records needed to service the accounts. The underlying tort, therefore, is not simply an act of conversion. Ocasio used wrongful meanstheftto interfere with an existing contract between Empire and the Bank. Because that contract was terminable at will, however, Ocasio's conduct is more properly characterized as interference with Empire's expectation that its business relationship with the Bank would continue. The Restatement (Second) of Torts § 766, comment g, addresses this situation: Until [it is] terminated..., the contract is valid and subsisting, and the defendant may not improperly interfere with it. The fact that the contract is terminable at will, however, is to be taken into account in determining the damages that the plaintiff has suffered by reason of its breach.... One's interest in a contract terminable at will is primarily an interest in future relations between the parties, and he has no legal assurance of them. For this reason, an interference with this interest is closely analogous to interference with prospective contractual relations. Accordingly, we construe Ocasio's conduct as wrongful interference with a prospective contractual relationship. [19] Empire's damages, therefore, are not limited to the value of the stolen records and of the assets that were destroyed at its offices. Empire can recover for the lost profits that it would have earned, but for Ocasio's wrongful interference, from servicing the Bank's accounts. [20]