Opinion ID: 1951915
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: sufficiency of the evidence

Text: The defendants contend that the trial court erred in denying their timely motions for a judgment as a matter of law on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support a finding of tortious interference with a contractual relationship. We disagree. We review the trial court's denial of a motion for a judgment as a matter of law by examining the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff to determine whether any reasonable view of the evidence, including all justifiable inferences to be drawn therefrom, can sustain the verdict. Schiavi v. Goodwin, 542 A.2d 367, 368 (Me.1988). The burden is on the moving party to show that the adverse verdict is clearly and manifestly wrong. Id. (citation omitted). A party can recover damages for a tortious interference with a contract if a person by fraud or intimidation procures the breach of a contract that would have continued but for such wrongful interference. C.N. Brown Co. v. Gillen, 569 A.2d 1206, 1210 (Me.1990). At trial, Grover conceded that there was no intimidation and thus was required to establish that the defendants procured the breach through fraud. The defendants contend there was no evidence of their interference with the Grover-Bates contract by fraud. A person is liable for fraud if the person (1) makes a false representation (2) of a material fact (3) with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of whether it is true or false (4) for the purpose of inducing another to act or to refrain from acting in reliance on it, and (5) the other person justifiably relies on the representation as true and acts upon it to the damage of the plaintiff. See Letellier v. Small, 400 A.2d 371, 376 (Me.1979). Here, based on the evidence submitted to it, the jury reasonably could have found the following: Goldfarb and Pollack, knowing it to be false, told the Tangs that Grover made the claimed derogatory ethnic remarks about the Tangs and did not properly service his accounts. These statements were made knowing that the Tangs were executive officers of both Minette and Bates and for the purpose of inducing the Tangs in their capacity as officers of Bates to terminate the Grover-Bates contract. Because the Tangs were also officers of Minette and Minette owned a majority of the Bates stock, Goldfarb's and Pollack's tortious interference with Grover's contract was aided by their employment relationship with Minette. Minette, therefore, is vicariously liable for this tortious interference. See McLain v. Training & Dev. Corp., 572 A.2d 494, 497-98 (Me.1990) (employer was vicariously liable for employee's intentional tort because jury could rationally find that the employment relationship made possible the commission of the tort). Goldfarb's separate contention that at the relevant time he was an employee of Bates and accordingly could not be liable for a tortious interference with the Grover-Bates contract is contrary to his testimony that when he acquired one of Grover's accounts, in February 1988, he was an employee of Minette and continued to be supervised by Pollack, Minette's vice-president, and that he discussed the alleged ethnic slurs with Pollack because Pollack was his superior. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to Grover, the court properly determined there was sufficient evidence to support a jury's finding that Goldfarb was an employee of Minette. Because Minette for the first time on appeal contends that, at the time in issue, Goldfarb and Pollack were not acting in the scope of their employment by Minette, we need not address that issue. We also need not address Minette's contention, raised for the first time by this appeal, that, as a matter of law, a parent corporation cannot be liable for the tortious interference with a contract of its subsidiary. No principle is better settled than that a party who raises an issue for the first time on appeal will be deemed to have waived the issue.... Kelly v. University of Maine, 623 A.2d 169, 171 (Me.1993) (citation omitted). Contrary to the defendants' contention, there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that but for the defendants' fraudulent interference, the Grover-Bates contract would have continued. Grover presented evidence that between 1985 and 1988 he was Bates's most productive salesperson. During 1986 his sales figures were four times greater than the next most productive sales-person and accounted for about twenty-five percent of Bates's total sales. Bates's president, Thomas LeVeen, testified that he believed it would have been utter foolishness to fire a man who accounted for 25 percent of [Bates's] sales. In 1986, Bates had a negative cash flow, but turned a profit in 1987, a year in which Grover had the highest sales volume. Based on this evidence, the jury reasonably could conclude that the Grover-Bates contract would have continued but for the defendants' tortious interference.