Opinion ID: 397422
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Fox Valley's Claim of Tortious Interference with

Text: Contract and Business Relations 34 Count II of Fox Valley's counterclaim and supplemental counterclaim alleged that USTA's letters to its members, 15 warning that racing information would not be supplied to or recorded from Fox Valley and that Rules 5 and 17 would in future be enforced, amounted to tortious interference with the contract and business relations existing between Fox Valley and the Illinois Harness Horsemen's Association. 16 The district court granted summary judgment for Fox Valley on Count II, but the decision must be reversed and remanded. 35 As Judge Aspen noted, the elements of a tortious interference claim are: 36 the existence of a valid business relationship (not necessarily evidenced by an enforceable-contract) or expectancy; knowledge of the relationship or expectancy on the part of the interferer; an intentional interference inducing or causing a breach or termination of the relationship or expectancy; and resultant damage to the party whose relationship or expectancy has been disrupted. 37 487 F.Supp. at 1017, quoting City of Rock Falls v. Chicago Title and Trust Co., 13 Ill.App.3d 359, 363, 300 N.E.2d 331, 333 (3d Dist. 1973). Two of the elements of the cause of action are missing in Judge Aspen's analysis. First, the record does not show that USTA knew about an IHHA agreement with Fox Valley. Judge Aspen assumed knowledge based on the two letters USTA had mailed its members in April 1977 (487 F.Supp. at 1011-1012, 1017), but the letters make no reference to any IHHA agreement with defendant tracks (App. 318-319). Moreover, the scope of the mailings is unclear, but even a high correlation between IHHA members and the addressees of the letters would not be probative. As noted earlier, all IHHA members are also USTA members, and USTA needed to inform its members who might participate in meetings at Fox Valley that the track had not affiliated with USTA. Second, Fox Valley has shown no damage, because USTA has been enjoined since 1977 from applying its rules to members who participate in Fox Valley's race meetings. Illinois Harness Horsemen's Association v. United States Trotting Association, No. 77 C 3014 (N.D.Ill., August 29, 1977). Judge Aspen concentrated, however, on the supposed invalidity of USTA's affirmative defenses. He denied that USTA could be protecting its own economic interest in the eligibility certificates, because he held that it had no such interest. Nor could USTA be enforcing its pre-existing contractual right to forbid its members to present eligibility certificates at non-affiliated tracks, because the contract term conduced to a boycott and the boycott, he ruled, was a per se violation of the Sherman Act. Since we hold that USTA has shown ownership of the eligibility certificates and that no per se violation of the antitrust laws has been demonstrated, the district court's grant of summary judgment to Fox Valley on this claim was also improper. 38 Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent herewith; costs to appellant. 17 39