Opinion ID: 3046573
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the harm results from acts or practices of

Text: the actor determined to be actionable as an unfair method of competition, taking into account the nature of the conduct and its likely effect on both the person seeking relief and the public; or (b) the acts or practices of the actor are actionable by the other under federal or state statutes . . . or general principles of common law apart from those considered in this Restatement. Appellant maintains that in the incident in December 2004 that we already have described, a Surgical sales representative “loudly accused” Advanced’s sales representative of illegally selling Acumed products at Nazareth Hospital. According to appellant, the Nazareth Hospital incident led Dr. Robert Frederick, a Nazareth doctor, to stop doing business with appellant and also resulted in Morris’s exclusion from the certain circumstances. See ID Sec. Sys. Canada, Inc. v. Checkpoint Sys., Inc., 249 F. Supp. 2d 622, 687 (E.D. Pa. 2003) (listing cases). 58 operating theater at Jefferson Hospital. Dr. Frederick, however, at a deposition on January 31, 2007, denied overhearing the argument between the two sales representatives and had no recollection of refusing to do business with appellant. Moreover, appellant did not present evidence that a Surgical sales representative made defamatory statements about appellant’s Acumed inventory and does not point to evidence connecting Morris’s exclusion from the Jefferson Hospital operating theater to the Nazareth Hospital incident. Therefore, the District Court properly dismissed this claim on summary judgment. See Lexington Ins. Co. v. W. Pa. Hosp., 423 F.3d 318, 332-33 (3d Cir. 2005) (speculation and conjecture may not defeat a motion for summary judgment). Further, the letters Acumed sent to appellant’s customers, despite appellant’s view that they “disparage[d] the inventory Advanced was selling,” appellant’s br. at 18, do not qualify as defamation or unfair competition. The letters informed Acumed’s customers—without mentioning appellant by name—that Acumed only would insure and warrant products its authorized dealers sold and further informed its customers that Surgical was its authorized representative in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Thus, inasmuch as the letters did not specifically name appellant and were not defamatory under Pennsylvania law, the District Court appropriately granted appellees summary judgment on this claim. Likewise, because Acumed’s conduct in sending the letters was not actionable but rather was justified, the letters did not constitute unfair competition. Appellant argues that certain questions that appellees’ 59 counsel asked witnesses during depositions constituted an abuse of process. To the extent that appellant did not raise these claims in the District Court, it waived them. Arnold M. Diamond, 180 F.3d at 524 n.6. In any event, appellees in asking the questions did not engage in conduct constituting an abuse of process.30 Finally, appellant contends that Acumed pleaded a Lanham Act claim in order to “manufacture federal jurisdiction.”31 Appellees’ Lanham Act claim survived appellant’s pretrial motion seeking an order dismissing the case for want of federal jurisdiction, but the jury rejected the Lanham Act claim at trial. We believe that in alleging that appellees instituted groundless litigation, appellant was attempting to bring a malicious prosecution claim under Pennsylvania law and, in any event, we see no other way to treat the claim. In Pennsylvania, a party engages in malicious prosecution when it institutes a lawsuit with a malicious motive and without probable cause. Werner v. Plater-Zyberk, 799 A.2d 776, 785 30 Our disposition of this issue makes it unnecessary to examine the litigation privilege on the point. 31 We note, however, that appellant does not appear to have pleaded properly in a counterclaim that appellees instituted groundless litigation. Inasmuch as the District Court did not issue an opinion on its summary judgment disposition, we are not certain whether it dismissed this portion of the counterclaim because appellant improperly pleaded it or because of its lack of merit. We, however, are upholding the dismissal of the claim on the merits. 60 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2002). Based on the Nazareth Hospital incident and other reports that unauthorized sales representatives were selling its products, Acumed had cause to believe, even though the jury’s verdict did not support that belief, that appellant was causing confusion in the marketplace with regard to appellant’s relationship with Acumed. Therefore, the District Court did not err in granting summary judgment on appellant’s claim that appellees instituted groundless litigation against it.32 3. Tortious Interference with Contractual Relationships We already have discussed Pennsylvania’s requirements for a tortious interference with contractual relationships claim when considering appellant’s appeal from the judgment in favor of appellees on their similar claim, and thus we do not repeat them here. We find that the District Court did not err in granting appellees a judgment as a matter of law on this portion of counterclaim IV, inasmuch as appellant did not present any evidence of conduct that could have led a reasonable jury to conclude that appellees interfered with appellant’s contracts. Appellant based its tortious interference counterclaim on the same incidents that it alleges constituted defamation: the Nazareth Hospital incident and Acumed’s letters to its customers. To the extent that appellant claims that Acumed’s 32 Appellees contend that appellant could not bring its malicious prosecution counterclaim in the very action appellant claimed was being maliciously prosecuted. See T.C.R. Realty, Inc. v. Cox, 372 A.2d 721, 728 (Pa. 1977). We need not address this point. 61 letters constituted tortious interference, these claims are meritless as a matter of law. As we discussed above, the letters do not even mention appellant, and Acumed certainly had a right, if not an obligation, to notify the purchasers of its products of its warranty policies. Further, there was no evidence at the trial that Casey or anyone else representing appellees made false statements or misrepresentations to third parties during the Nazareth hospital incident. Finally, appellant challenges the exclusion of the testimony of Jeanne Mikalauskas, one of its sales representatives, arguing that her testimony would have supported appellant’s version of the Nazareth incident. The District Court, however, properly excluded Mikalauskas’ testimony, as she was not present during the incident and attempted to testify to out-of-court statements of Dr. Frederick precluded by the hearsay rule. See Fed. R. Evid. 802.