Opinion ID: 2604863
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: business interference claim

Text: Petitioner's only contention before this court is that the publication of the articles is constitutionally protected and cannot give rise to liability for the tort of business interference under NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 73 L.Ed.2d 1215, 102 S.Ct. 3409 (1982). We agree. In Claiborne, merchants sued the NAACP and its members for economic losses sustained during a 7-year boycott of their businesses. During the boycott there were speeches, marches, picketing, threats, and several acts of violence. The United States Supreme Court held that the First and Fourteenth Amendments preclude imposition of liability for tortious interference with business on boycott participants or the NAACP, even though some boycott participants were violent. The opportunity to persuade others to action is clearly protected. The Claiborne Court quoted Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415, 419, 29 L.Ed.2d 1, 91 S.Ct. 1575 (1971), where the Court held in a case involving the peaceful distribution of leaflets: Petitioners plainly intended to influence respondent's conduct by their activities; this is not fundamentally different from the function of a newspaper. Petitioners were engaged openly and vigorously in making the public aware of respondent's real estate practices. Those practices were offensive to them, as the views and practices of petitioners are no doubt offensive to others. But so long as the means are peaceful, the communication need not meet standards of acceptability. (Citations omitted.) [1] The reasoning of the Claiborne Court is applicable here. Local 690, perceiving a grievance between one of its members and Caruso, asked its members and other laboring people to boycott his business. Though perhaps coercive, petitioner's activity was speech in its purest form and thus is entitled to at least the same degree of protection the NAACP's speech plus conduct activities were afforded against imposition of damages for business interference. We have previously held that damage to the business of persons subject to a primary boycott, lawfully conducted, is one of the inconveniences for which the law does not afford a remedy. Wright v. Teamsters' Local 690, 33 Wn.2d 905, 913, 207 P.2d 662 (1949). Although petitioner in the instant case was not boycotting in its usual realm ( i.e., organizing workers or informing the public of a dispute with an employer), its do not patronize message was protected. Protecting the speech here does not affect the statutory prohibition against secondary boycotts which has been upheld. Claiborne, 458 U.S. at 912. Caruso's only response to the Claiborne analysis is that the information upon which the do not patronize request was based is false and thus not protected. His claim of falsity, however, properly goes to the defamation cause of action.