Court Opinion

ID: 9792943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:39:45.196515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:02:00.895956
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Associate Chief Justice,
concurring in the result:
I concur in the lead opinion except for footnotes 3 and 4, which express the author’s doubt about the vitality of the improper-purpose prong of Leigh Furniture & Carpet Co. v. Isom, 657 P.2d 293 (Utah 1982). Con-cededly, that prong, if construed broadly, could seriously interfere with the forces of competition in the marketplace when competitors seek to take business away from others by lowering prices or by blaming other means that harm a competitor. Certainly, such “commercial conduct eases” do not fall within the scope of an improper-purpose test when the conduct is legitimate competitive conduct, such as is recognized under the antitrust laws.
Like any other watershed case, Leigh Furniture did not, and could not, deal with every possible fact situation to which the principles enunciated therein might be applied. It is, *791indeed, the strength of the common law that general principles of law receive definition and limitation over time by their application in specific fact situations. This is the first case to arise under the improper-purpose test of Leigh Furniture since it was decided. In my view, it reaches an appropriate result and demonstrates the soundness of the improper-purpose prong, at least on the facts of this case. Defendants’ action in harming Pratt was entirely gratuitous. Prodata could have sued Pratt for violation of the noncom-petition covenant if it indeed had thought that Pratt had violated his contract and that Prodata had suffered some damage giving rise to a valid cause of action. Prodata, for whatever reasons, did not do that. Instead, it undertook to harm Pratt by virtue of a certain kind of personal leverage that it apparently had with UDOT by inducing UDOT to fire Pratt. Infliction of gratuitous harm of that sort ought not to be acceptable under the law.
The implication, if such it be, in the lead opinion that plaintiff has an action for extortion is not correct. If plaintiff had no course of action under Leigh Furniture, he would have no remedy for the wrong in this case.
DURHAM, J., concurs in the concurring opinion of STEWART, Associate C.J.
HALL, J., heard the arguments but retired before he could act on the opinion.