Opinion ID: 789579
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Tortious Interference With Prospective Contract Claim

Text: 76 Even though we have held that the Noerr/Pennington doctrine shields petitioning activity from liability for claims of tortious interference with contract and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, see Cheminor Drugs, Ltd. v. Ethyl Corp., 168 F.3d 119, 128 (3d Cir.1999), we do not need to decide whether the marketing campaign at issue here is petitioning activity which the doctrine immunizes. For even if the defendants are not shielded from liability, we agree with the District Court that Santana did not prove the existence of a prospective contractual relation. 18 77 There is only one prospective contract with which Santana claims Bobrick interfered. Specifically, Santana tried to bid on a contract at the Rio Hondo Community College in California. The architect for the project originally specified HDPE toilet partitions. However, the architect changed the specification to phenolic after watching a videotape and conducting a fire test on samples of HDPE, which Santana had provided, and samples of phenolic, which Bobrick had provided. Penner Partitions, a supplier of phenolic partitions, ultimately won the contract. Santana argues that it lost this contract as a result of Bobrick's fire scare tactics. 78 A prospective contractual relation is something less than a contractual right, something more than a mere hope. Thompson Coal Co. v. Pike Coal Co., 488 Pa. 198, 412 A.2d 466, 471 (1979). To determine whether Santana had a prospective contractual relation with Rio Hondo, Santana must show that an issue of fact exists as to whether, but for Bobrick's `fire scare' campaign, there was a reasonable probability that Santana would secure a contract from Rio Hondo. Santana, 249 F.Supp.2d at 543. It need not be certain that Santana would have obtained the contract, only reasonably probable. Alvord-Polk, 37 F.3d at 1015. 79 Santana argues it was reasonably probable that it would have obtained the contract but for the defendant's marketing campaign because it had approximately 60% of the HDPE market segment, had a favorable track record with the customer, and had actually been specified. 80 Despite the specification of HDPE for the Rio Hondo project, we cannot say, however, that it was reasonably probable that Rio Hondo was going to award the contract to Santana. Even though Santana had convinced Rio Hondo to specify its partitions, Santana did not have a reasonable probability of obtaining the contract for the work. General Sound Telephone Co. v. AT & T Communications, Inc., 654 F.Supp. 1562, 1565 (E.D.Pa.1987). Because Bobrick persuaded Rio Hondo to change the specification to phenolic instead of HDPE, Santana was simply denied an opportunity to bid. However, even if Santana had had the opportunity to bid, one of the two other suppliers of HDPE partitions — Capital Partitions or Comtec 19 — could still have obtained the contract. There is no evidence that Santana would be the winning bidder. The problems with obtaining a government contract in this situation is demonstrated by the fact that Rio Hondo did not in fact award the contract to Bobrick. 81