Court Opinion

ID: 9540975
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:21:20.873394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:01:57.558300
License: Public Domain

HORNBY, Justice,
dissenting.
When all is said and done, Blue Cross refused to issue a quotation for the Bennett account through Pombriant and provided a quotation through Johnson instead. The jury found that this was an intentional interference by Blue Cross with the contractual relationship between Pombriant and Bennett.
This Court has wisely maintained the requirement of intimidation or fraud1 as a necessary element in an action for tortious interference with a contractual relationship, see MacKerron v. Madura, 445 A.2d 680 (Me.1982); Taylor v. Pratt, 135 Me. 282, 195 A. 205 (1937); Perkins v. Pendleton, 90 Me. 166, 38 A. 96 (1897), rather than adopt the open-ended definition of other courts and the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 767.2 The only “intimidation” in the record lies, in the Court’s words, in *662“the intimidating means of making it clear to Bennett that the only manner in which it could avail itself of Blue Cross’s lower rates for the desired insurance would be by using the brokerage services of Johnson.” That is not intimidation in any ordinary sense of the word; it is simply the imposition of an exclusive dealing arrangement or a refusal to deal through a particular agent. It is not like a police officer threatening to pursue a drunk driving charge unless an individual fires his lawyer, MacKerron v. Madura, 445 A.2d 680 (Me.1982), or a small town doctor threatening to have all his patients boycott a pharmacy unless the pharmacy fires an employee, Taylor v. Pratt, 135 Me. 282, 195 A. 205 (1937).
Nor did Blue Cross accomplish its interference with the Bennett-Pombriant relationship through fraud. Although the record does contain assertions that the jury may ultimately have found to be untrue, those assertions did not accomplish the interference. The interference was accomplished by Blue Cross’s refusal to deal through Pombriant. That may have been a breach of the contract between Blue Cross and Pombriant, but it was not fraud.
I would therefore vacate the judgment and direct the entry of judgment for Blue Cross so far as the tort claim is concerned, because of the failure to prove that intimidation or fraud accomplished the interference. Without the tort, the punitive damages claim must fail as well. Forbes v. Wells Beach Casino, Inc., 409 A.2d 646, 655 (Me.1979).
The remaining count involves damages for breach of contract. Specifically, the jury found that Blue Cross’s quoting through Johnson rather than through Pom-briant breached the broker appointment contract between Blue Cross and Pombri-ant. The jury awarded $100,000 in damages for the breach of that broker appointment contract. The jury earlier and separately awarded $12,371.63 — the amount of commissions Blue Cross paid Johnson the four years it retained the Bennett account — as total compensatory damages flowing from the tort. The best Pombriant can offer to support the $100,000 award (apart from the interesting concession that “[t]ort damages for interference with contractual relations are broader” — damages that here are only $12,371.63) is to argue that
[t]he plaintiff testified that he lost about $15,000 in commissions and service fees in 1984 as a result of losing Bennett Industries. He also testified that he lost only that one client in the ten years he had been in practice on his own, and that he fully expected to continue to be a broker of record for Bennett Industries. Based on this evidence alone, the jury was justified in returning a verdict on the breach of contract count in the amount of $100,000.
But these factors relate to damages not from loss of the Blue Cross contract but from loss of the Bennett contract, which the jury obviously rejected in awarding only $12,371.63 for the tort. This Court enlarges the list, but again the factors relate to loss of the Bennett contract (“total compensatory damages in the amount of $112,371.63 for his loss over a reasonable period of time of profits from commissions that he would have received from placing Bennett’s insurance”), not the Blue Cross contract. The record contains no showing of what amounts Pombriant lost as a result of losing his broker relationship with Blue Cross — beyond his loss of the Bennett account. There was reference to three accounts that he had previously placed with Blue Cross, but he testified that all three companies were now out of business, he had not received any commissions on these accounts from Blue Cross in any event, and there was no testimony that he could not successfully place them with other insurers. Thus, aside from the loss that Pom-briant suffered in losing the Bennett account, the jury could only speculate3 in *663assigning any number to the damages flowing from the breach of the Blue Cross contract. Accordingly I would order a new trial on damages for breach of the Blue Cross contract unless the plaintiff remits all damages over $12,371.63.

. Pombriant has not argued that undue influence supports the tort on this record. See MacNaughton v. Cossin, 493 A.2d 1040, 1043 (Me.1985).

. [T]he courts have more or less continuously expanded the tort, with the effect, perhaps, that the uncertainties in its definition have become more rather than less significant. Although the tort continues to find supporters, it has been subjected to serious criticisms on a wide range of grounds from economics to justice to free speech, with a good deal of emphasis on the idea that an actor should not be held liable for interference with contract unless the interference is accomplished by unlawful means or an independent tort.
All of this leaves open a good many questions about the basis of liability and defense, the types of contract or relationship to be protected, and the kind of interference that will be actionable, each of which requires no little attention before the beginning of an answer can be made. W. Prosser & W. Keeton, The Law of Torts § 129 at 979 (5th ed. 1984) (footnotes omitted).

. The jury was obviously confused. It first sought a repeat of the instruction on punitive and breach of contract damages. It then returned a verdict form that awarded $262,371.63 on the breach of contract — -the total of the compensatory and punitive tort damages. After the court indicated that was not acceptable and tried to explain damages further, the forelady *663reported, "We're very confused, Your Honor." Still another attempt to explain damages was then made. All the damage instructions were in terms of Pombriant’s. lost profits — "the total amount of lost net income which you determine by computing Plaintiffs gross receipts due under the contract and deducting Plaintiffs expenses of performance under the contract." The record just did not show gross receipts or expenses for Pombriant under the Blue Cross broker appointment contract aside from the Bennett account.