Opinion ID: 1997204
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Historical Nature of the Interference With Contract Claim

Text: This court first recognized a common-law claim for intentional interference with contract in 1934. In Local Dairymen's Cooperative Association, Inc. v. Potvin, 54 R.I. 430, 433, 173 A. 535, 536 (1934), the court acknowledged the propriety of bringing such a claim in a bill of equity because [t]he most effective way of preventing a breach of the agreements is to enjoin a third party. However, the Potvin decision also impliedly recognized that if damages were requested, the same claim could be brought at law. Electing to follow the reasoning of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Beekman v. Marsters, 195 Mass. 205, 80 N.E. 817 (1907), the Potvin court stated that `[w]here the plaintiff proves that the defendant unlawfully interferes or threatens to interfere with his business or his rights under a contract, and further makes out in proof that damages will not afford an adequate remedy, equity will issue an injunction.' 54 R.I. at 433-34, 173 A. at 536. In Beekman, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had traced the root of contract-interference claims to the settled rule in Massachusetts declared in Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555 (1871), that an action at law would lie for intentional interference with any contract Beekman, 80 N.E. at 818. Walker itself attributed the origin of this form of action to a long line of English precedent establishing that `[i]n all cases where a man has a temporal loss or damage by the wrong of another, he may have an action upon the case to be repaired in damages.' The intentional causing of such loss to another, without justifiable cause, and with the malicious purpose to inflict it, is of itself a wrong. Walker, 107 Mass. at 562 (quoting Lord Chief Baron Comyns' Digest, Action on the Case, (A)). In one of these hoary English precedents cited by the Supreme Judicial Court, Garret v. Taylor, [1621] Cro.Jac. 567, 79 E.R. 485 (KB.), the King's Bench entertained an action for misfeasance when the defendant, threatening mayhem and vexatious suits, deterred customers of the plaintiff, a freemason, from coming to his quarry to purchase stones. And in another, a jury verdict for damages against the master of the trading ship Othello was upheld in a special action on the case after the Othello had fired upon African natives while contriving and maliciously intending to hinder and deter the natives from trading with another ship, the Tarleton. Tarleton v. M'Gawley, [1793] Peake N.P.C. 270, 271, 170 E.R. 153 (emphasis in original). In Keble v. Hickringill, [1707] 11 East 571, 574 n. (a); 11 Mod. 74; 3 Salk. 9; Holt 14; 88 E.R. 898 (Q.B.), and again in Carrington v. Taylor, [1809] 11 East 571, 103 E.R. 1126 (KB.), actions on the case were allowed, as for example when the Carrington defendant well knowing the premises, but contriving and wrongfully and unjustly intending to injure and aggrieve the plaintiff, and to deprive him of a great part of the profits and advantages, interfered with the plaintiffs business of seducing and then shooting wild fowl on tidal marshes. In allowing the cause to proceed even where the defendant's acts were ostensibly lawful but performed in a malicious manner, Lord Chief Justice Holt commented: I am of the opinion that this action doth lie. It seems to be new in its instance, but is not new in the reason or principle of it Carrington, 11 East at 575 (quoting Keble). Later cases cited these same precedents as establishing the broad and flexible precept that intentionally to do that which is calculated in the ordinary course of events to damage, and which does, in fact, damage another in that other person's property or trade, is actionable if done without just cause or excuse. Mogul Steamship Co. v. M'Gregor, Gow. & Co., [1889] 23 Q.B.D. 598, 613, A.C. 25 (Eng.C.A.). Thus common-law courts conceived of cases alleging malicious interference with business interests as variations upon one of the great themes of the common lawthat intentional wrongdoing causing damage to another is actionable at lawand not as the development of a new principle or new cause of action each time it was invoked and applied to new facts. Whether the modern tort of interference with contract (which is now universally recognized in England and the United States) can be said to have existed at common law in 1843, however, requires a somewhat more extended analysis. Legal commentators typically identify the English case of Lumley v. Gye, [1853] 2 EL & Bl. 216, 118 E.R. 749 (K.B.), decided a decade after the adoption of our State Constitution, as the first appearance of the tort in its contemporary visage. See, e.g., W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on The Law of Torts § 129, at 980 (5th ed. 1984); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 766, at 8 (1979). In Lumley the Queen's Bench struggled to determine whether the seamless webs of the common law could enfold a cause of action based upon interference with a personal service contract The plaintiff, a proprietor of the Queen's Theatre, accused the defendant of having willfully and maliciously enticed his star dramatic artiste, Johanna Wagner, to abandon her contract of performance with the theater. Ultimately a majority of the court, guided by what it viewed as fundamental principles of the common law, decided to recognize the action as one on the case. Lumley, 2 El. & Bl. at 224-25, 118 E.R. at 752-53. The decision in Lumley was heavily criticized in its day. Some commentators viewed the case as a untoward extension of existing case law and even doubted that its imposition of tort liability on a stranger to the contract was defensible intellectually. See, e.g., William Schofield, The Principle of Lumley v. Gye, and its Application, 2 Harv.L.Rev. 19, 21-22 (1889); C.C. Langdell, A Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction, 1 Harv.L.Rev. 55, 57 (1887). [10] Some commentators also contend that American jurisdictions were hesitant at first to adopt this new principle of the common law, although it is undisputed that by the early 1900s the tort was widely recognized. See Prosser and Keeton § 129, at 980; Restatement (Second) of Torts § 766(d), at 10. But a close scrutiny of Lumley reveals that the decision of the Queen's Bench to recognize this common-law action was neither new nor innovative. As the courts in both Lumley and Walker v. Cronin made clear, the principles that countenanced such an action were already firmly entrenched in the earlier established common law. The Lumley majority identified obvious antecedents to this type of action dating to well before the time that Rhode Island preserved the right to jury trial. Indeed, incipient forms of this action can be discerned even as far back as Roman law, which provided a remedy for violence against the relatives or servants of the paterfamilias. In addition, the fourteenth-century English Ordinance of Labourers was designed to protect manorial lord and servant relationships in the aftermath of the Black Death. See Prosser and Keeton § 129, at 980; Lumley, 2 El. & Bl. at 224, 241, 119 E.R. at 752, 758. The Lumley majority specifically noted its reliance upon each of these ancient precedents, which were also cited by the Massachusetts high court in Walker. But Lumley did not, however, limit its rationale to the citation of these precedents. Rather, it drew down even more deeply into the well of common-law principles. Whatever may have been the origin or foundation of the law, explained Lord Crompton it must now be considered clear law   . Lumley, 2 El. & Bl. at 224, 118 E.R. at 752. Moreover, the court described its holding as apply[ing] such a remedy to a case `new in its instance, but not new in the reason and principle of it,' that is, to a case where the wrong and damage are strictly analogous to the wrong and damage in a well recognized class of cases. Id. at 229, 118 E.R. at 754 (Crompton, J.) (citing Keble v. Hickeringill and Carrington v. Taylor ). Indeed, Lord Coleridge, although of the opinion that the cause was bad, nonetheless recognized that novel factual circumstances would not foreclose the possibility that a case could still be recognized at law. [11] Lumley, 2 EL & Bl. at 250-51, 118 E.R. at 762 (Coleridge, J., dissenting) (I am aware that with respect to an action on the case the argument primae impressionis is sometimes of no weight.). This canvas of ancient authorities persuades us that Rhode Island's courts, if presented with a similar case in 1843, would have recognized, as did Lumley v. Gye , that the allegations of tortious and malicious interference with contract as pled in this complaint stated an action on the case cognizable at law. Cf. Bendick, 558 A.2d at 944 (holding that Rhode Island courts in 1843 would have allowed an action to establish and collect an administrative penalty as an action for debt triable to a jury at common law). Thus, because the parties' rights and liabilities with respect to contract interference to this claim could have been decided in an action at law (and would have been so decided had the plaintiffs not also requested injunctive relief), the Sasso rule mandates that the trial court should afford a jury trial on any disputed factual issues pertinent to this claim as if it had been brought in a pre-merger court of law seeking money damages. That plaintiffs may also have been able to file a petition in equity seeking injunctive relief based on these same allegations does not alter the basic legal nature of the damages claim even though in times of old the Chancery Court may well have proceeded to decide plaintiffs' damages claims as incidental to its exercise of the court's equity powers. See generally Langdell, 1 Harv.L.Rev. 55 (expounding upon the interplay of equity and law). Thus, we hold that the Sasso rule of equity practice requires that any disputed factual issues underlying the plaintiffs' claims relating to contract interference should be decided by a jury, rather than by the court alone, and that it was an abuse of discretion in this case to refuse to so employ a jury upon the Lauzon defendants' timely request for a jury trial. Therefore, the Lauzon defendants should have been granted a jury trial, as requested, on the contract-interference claims alleged in court 1 of the complaint. Because this disposition requires a remand to the Superior Court for a jury trial on the claims against the Lauzon defendants, we need not reach their remaining claims of error relating to the sufficiency of the evidence underlying the trial court's computation of compensatory damages or its award of punitive damages.