Opinion ID: 1799426
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Heading: Conspiracy Defined.

Text: A conspiracy is a combination of two or more persons, by some concerted action, to accomplish a criminal or unlawful purpose, or to accomplish a purpose not unlawful by criminal or unlawful means. Veriden v. McLeod, 180 Mich 182. In addition, at the core of an actionable civil conspiracy is a question of damages. This facet of the law of conspiracy is accurately summed up in the case of Roche v. Blair, 305 Mich 608, 613, 614: The law is well established that in a civil action for damages resulting from wrongful acts alleged to have been committed in pursuance of a conspiracy, the gist or gravamen of the action is not the conspiracy but is the wrongful acts causing the damages. The conspiracy standing alone without the commission of acts causing damage would not be actionable. The cause of action does not result from the conspiracy but from the acts done. In the case of Auto Workers' Temple Ass'n v. Janson, 227 Mich 430, 433, the point is made more succinctly: the foundation of the action is the damage and not the conspiracy.