Opinion ID: 874208
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Interference with Customer Contracts

Text: Wesco next contends that all Defendants had knowledge of Wesco's contracts with its customers and Defendants intentionally interfered with those contracts, resulting in a breach of the relationships and injury to Wesco. In its First Amended Complaint, Wesco identified three contracts it claimed were interfered with. On appeal, Wesco focuses on one of the contracts, and argues that because the customer is still using the equipment but not purchasing paint from Wesco, evidence of interference has been provided. Defendants argued below that there was no evidence of an injury because the contracts identified by Wesco merely require that any equipment provided to the customers be returned along with any unused product, and therefore Wesco could simply pick up its equipment and bill the customers for any unused paint. Here, the district court found that a conditional use contract was the only contract between Wesco and customers that may have been breached by the customers. The court stated: There is no other evidence that Wesco customers owed a contractual duty to Wesco to continue to purchase goods and/or services from them. There is no other evidence that such Wesco customers then breached such a contractual duty as a result of any interference in the contractual relationship by any of the Defendants. The three contracts Wesco identified provided that P & E would supply equipment at no charge in exchange for the customer purchasing products from P & E. As Defendants argued, Wesco could simply pick up its equipment if the customers were no longer purchasing the specified products from Wesco. Therefore, we affirm the district court and find that Defendants did not interfere with Wesco's customer contracts.