Court Opinion

ID: 9847870
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:09:01.600647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:41.141409
License: Public Domain

SUTIN, Judge (dissenting). I dissent. The only issue in this case is whether Briggs intentionally and improperly walked off with a good piece of business that belonged to his former employer. The trial court said: “No.” I disagree. The right to conduct one’s business without the wrongful and injurious interference of others is a valuable property right. Mobile Mechanical Contractors Ass’n v. Carlough, 456 F.Supp. 310 (D.C.Ala.1978). Did Briggs’ conduct interfere with the business rights of M & M? At the close of plaintiff’s case, defendants moved for judgment under Rule 41(b). Defendants argued: * * * Any action of Mr. Briggs for renting it [a centrifugal pump] had specific authorization from the persons who were charged in the M & M office to talk to Mr. Ray Owens. Defendants were mistaken. When Briggs walked in, the two men at M & M were Raymond Salmon and Mike Meyers. Ray was a shophand roustabout. Mike was not an employee of M & M. He was self-employed as a welder. Powers was the manager of the M & M office and was temporarily absent. He was the only person who could give “specific authorization” to Briggs to use the telephone to talk to Ray Owens and Mr. Baker of Maddox Energy. Of course, if Powers had been present, M & M would have rented a pump to Maddox Energy who sought one through Owens. Two pumps were then available. When Owens called, Ray, who answered the telephone, turned the phone over to Mike, then went outside to look and saw a pump sitting on the right side of the shop. Mike decided to call Powers by radio and picked up the microphone. Briggs asked Ray if that man on the telephone was Owens. Ray said yes. He testified that Briggs said to Mike, “[l]et me talk to him,” then reached over and grabbed the phone-. Mike testified that he handed the phone to Briggs and heard him say “Do you need a pump?” Then, Briggs said, “Well, I’ve got one.” Then, he said: “Okay, when do you want it?” Mike put the microphone down. Briggs put the telephone down. Briggs then called Maddox Energy and arranged to deliver the pump. Briggs, recently employed by M & M, knew or could have instantly determined whether M & M had a pump for rent by stepping out of the office and looking. Knowing that the boss was out, Briggs decided to make a deal and took the business away from his former employer. When Powers returned to the office, Mike just waived at him but said nothing. He was afraid to tell him. He felt that he should have called him. Powers and Briggs then spoke “normally.” Briggs said to Powers: “You know, I’m going to hook up a pump tomorrow for Bill Baker for Maddox Energy. * * * Have you got a crew.” It was the court’s opinion that this was a comedy of errors; that it saw no violation of law because Briggs did nothing he wasn’t permitted to do. In my opinion, Briggs interferred with a prospective business advantage of M & M. Worldwide Commerce, Inc. v. Fruehauf Corp., 84 Cal.App.3d 803, 149 Cal.Rptr. 42, 45 (1978) said: The interest protected in the tort of interference with prospective business advantage * * * is the interest in reasonable expectations of economic advantage. The fundamental principle of the tort is that intentional interference with another’s efforts to enter into profitable contractual relations is actionable unless it falls within the area of socially acceptable conduct which the law regards as privileged. The wrong ordinarily requires conduct intended to interrupt negotiations or prevent the consummation of a contract. ****** Modern day authority Witkin writes that the tort consists of diverting or taking business from another employing intentional and improper methods which are not within the privilege of fair competition. * * * [Emphasis added.] In Azar v. Lehigh Corp., 364 So.2d 860, 862 (Fla.App.1978), Azar, a former salesman for defendant was enjoined from interfering with defendant’s business relationship. The court said: There is a narrow line between what constitutes vigorous competition in a free enterprise society and malicious interference with a favorable business relationship. * * * ****** * * * In the final analysis, the issue seems to turn upon whether the subject conduct is considered to be “unfair” according to contemporary business standards. The intentional interference with business expectancies constitutes an actionable tort. It is unnecessary to have an existing business relationship before a recovery can be had. There can be tortious interference if plaintiff was about to enter into such a relationship but had not done so. Edwards v. Anaconda Co., 115 Ariz. 313, 565 P.2d 190 (Ct.App.1977). Plaintiff need not establish an existing business relationship between himself and Maddox Energy. Fitt v. Schneidewind Realty Corp., 81 N.J.Super, 497, 196 A.2d 26 (1963). Fitt said: The essence of the protection the courts afford those claiming to have been interfered with is in adjudging whether what defendant has done is actionable and not in the exercise of an equal or superior right. The ultimate inquiry for the court is whether the conduct was: “ * * * ‘both injurious and transgressive of generally accepted standards of common morality or of law.’ * * * In other words, was the interference by defendant ‘sanctioned by the “rules of the game.’” * * * There can be no tighter test of liability in this area than that of the common conception of what is right and just dealing under the circumstances. Not only must defendants’ motive and purpose be proper but so also must be the means. [Citation omitted.]” * * * * * * * * * A wrongful act is one which in the ordinary course of events will infringe upon the rights of another to his damage, or one which is done with the purpose of benefiting the acting party at the other’s expense and is not done in the exercise of an equal or superior right. The mere doing of an act which is damaging to another and the actor’s benefit is wrongful and not within the “rules of the game.” [Emphasis added.] [Id. 29-30.] “The role of the court is to raise the standard of business morality and care, not judicially to sanction tortious activities. Higher standards benefit and protect both the innocent members of an industry and the general public.” [Emphasis added.] Wear-Ever Aluminum v. Townecraft Industries, 75 N.J.Super. 135, 182 A.2d 387, 394 (1962); Island Air, Inc. v. LaBar, 18 Wash. App. 129, 566 P.2d 972, 980 (1977). When courts speak in terms of “standards of business morality and care,” “the rules of the game,” and “contemporary business standards,” they speak affirmatively in favor of persons from whom business was diverted or taken. They seek to place those who interfere with another’s prospective advantage, business expectancies or economic advantage, upon a high level of ethical conduct. Once a tortfeasor has knowledge of plaintiff’s interests and intentionally interferes with those interests, there should be no difficulty in finding liability where the tortfeasor has acted with the desire and purpose of appropriating the benefits to himself. A line of demarcation should be based upon whether one who interferes acts to protect his own direct financial or business interests in fair competition which might otherwise be detrimentally harmed, or whether he is selfishly acting to appropriate the interests and benefits of another to promote his own welfare or to advance some future goal. The laws of competition in business are harsh enough at best. A person may engage in the sharpest competition with those in like business by holding out extraordinary inducements. If, however, he oversteps that line and commits an intentional act when he knows that economic benefits flow toward his competitor, and steps in and breaks off this economic advantage to capture these benefits for himself, his conduct contains elements of moral turpitude. It is not fair competition. It is wrongful or illegal and if damage results from it, the injured party is entitled to redress.' For many years there has “been a distinct and growing tendency of the courts to look beneath the letter of the law and give some effect to its beneficient spirit, thereby preventing the perversion of rules intended for the protection of human rights into engines of oppression and wrong.” Dunshee v. Standard Oil Co., 152 Iowa 618, 132 N.W. 371, 373 (1911). See, Estes, Expanding Horizons in the Law of Torts — Tortious Interference, 23 Drake L.Rev. 341 (1974). Due to the vast expansion of business and industry, the vast changes in employment and business relations and the intense competitive spirit in the free enterprise system, courts must expand the spirit of the law to disparage the tortfeasor who interferes with business expectancies and economic advantage. Briggs’ conduct was equivalent to one who is present in a competitor’s office with no one present, who answers the telephone and surreptitiously accepts the business coming to his competitor. Then, without notice thereof, requests assistance of his competitor to the competitor’s damage and the tortfeasor’s profit. To sanction this conduct leads to “outrage and indignity,” violence, insult and affront. M & M should not be required to post signs that state “Former Employees Engaged In A Competitive Business — Stay Off This Property.” Briggs intentionally and improperly walked off M & M’s property with a good piece of business that belonged to his former employer. M & M was not subject to a motion under Rule 41(b). The judgment entered should be reversed.