Court Opinion

ID: 9563667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:44:23.75669+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:00.326874
License: Public Domain

*413Judge WHICHARD
concurring.
The scope of a claim for tortious interference with contract includes not only procurement of breach but also all invasions of contractual relations that retard, make more difficult, or prevent performance, or make performance of less value to the promisee. Annot., 84 A.L.R. 43, 52 (1933); see generally Carpenter, “Interference with Contract Relations,” 41 Har. L. Rev. 728 (1928). If defendant here cannot prove breach — since its contract with First Atlantic did not specify a date it was due the funds and since First Atlantic reissued the check within one day after it stopped payment on the draft — defendant has at least presented evidence that due to the filing of liens against its property subsequent performance of the contract was of less value to it.
As to the element of justification, 75 N.C. App. 404, 411, 331 S.E. 2d 318, 322 (1985), to be actionable interference with contract must be otherwise than in the legitimate exercise of one’s own equal or superior right. Carpenter at 763. Whether plaintiff and third party defendant were unjustifiably demanding early payment or were acting within a privilege to protect a right to money due is ordinarily a question for the jury. See Annot., 26 A.L.R. 2d 1227, 1264 (1952). I do not believe that on the evidence here we can say as a matter of law that plaintiff and third party defendant acted with or without sufficient legal reason. Childress v. Abeles, 240 N.C. 667, 674-75, 84 S.E. 2d 176, 182 (1954) (“Justification imports ‘a sufficient lawful reason why a party did or did not do the thing charged, a sufficient lawful reason for acting, or failing to act. It connotes just, lawful excuse, and excludes’ legal ‘malice.’ ”).
For these reasons and for those stated in the opinion, supra, I agree that the evidence on defendant Tyson Builders’ counterclaim, viewed in the light most favorable to it, is sufficient to support a claim for tortious interference with contract and to withstand plaintiff and third party defendant’s motion for directed verdict.