Court Opinion

ID: 9563639
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:44:05.092263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:59.297245
License: Public Domain

POFF, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I endorse the majority’s decision to adopt and apply an exception to the rule governing contracts of employment at will. I disagree with the holding that the plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action under the conspiracy count of their motions for judgment.
The majority acknowledges that “an action in tort lies against those who conspire to induce the breach of a contract” when the object of the conspiracy is achieved. The majority then concludes that it takes two to conspire, that a corporation “cannot conspire with itself’, that the plaintiffs’ pleadings “are devoid of any factual allegations to support the idea that Davis induced the group of directors, ‘the Officials,’ to terminate the plaintiffs’ employment”, and, hence, that the conspiracy count fails to state a cause of action.
This rationale is flawed, I believe, because it treats the five directors as a single party litigant, an indivisible unit existing only as the alter ego of a corporation. It is true, of course, that when the five directors voted to discharge the plaintiffs, they were performing a corporate function. But this “improper discharge from employment”, an intentional tort, was alleged to be the product of a conspiracy “to induce the breach of a contract”, and such a conspiracy is actionable as a tort, separate and distinct from the improper-discharge tort.
When this Court reviews a ruling on a demurrer, we analyze the sufficiency of the plaintiff’s pleading. Here, the plaintiffs alleged that “[t]he activity of the Defendants and each of them, other than the Bank . . . constituted a conspiracy to interfere with the Plaintiff’s contractual relations with the Bank.” In the conspiracy count, the plaintiffs named neither the corporation nor its board of directors as a party defendant, but only the five directors who voted to terminate their employment and two other individuals.
*543As I read their allegation, the plaintiffs charged these defendants with the discrete tort of conspiring among themselves to cause the Bank to terminate their contracts of employment. It may be that the plaintiffs are unable to prove what they allege against one or more of the seven individual defendants. But we are asked to decide only whether their allegation is sufficient to survive a demurrer.
I believe it is, and I would reverse the judgments and remand the cases for a trial on the merits of both counts.