Court Opinion

ID: 9680381
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:31:16.225326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:28.371060
License: Public Domain

Robert H. Dudley, Justice. Walt Bennett Ford, Inc., has filed a petition for rehearing. We deny that petition but choose to supplement the discussion of one issue. The lower court found that the individual appellees were not liable for the tort of interference with business expectations. In the original opinion we affirmed that ruling and one of the reasons given was that the individual appellees did not act in bad faith. The general rule is that an improper motive or bad faith is no longer an essential part of the plaintiff’s case in the tort of interference with existing contractual relations. However, the defendant may show that his interference was privileged. Stebbins & Roberts, Inc. v. Halsey, 265 Ark. 903, 582 S.W. 2d 266 (1979). The case at bar deals with interference with a business expectation and not an existing contract. The chief difference lies in the recognition of more extensive privileges in the case of business expectations. Prosser, Torts, § 130 (4th Ed. 1971). In either case, “. . . an impersonal or disinterested motive of a laudable character may protect the defendant in his interference. This is true particularly where he seeks to protect a third person toward whom he stands in a relation of responsibility. . .” Prosser, supra, p. 943. In this case, school directors without bad faith were trying to protect the school district. This privilege to interfer, without bad faith, was clearly set out in Middlesex Concrete Products and Excavating Corp. v. The Carteret Industrial Ass’n., 37 N.J. 507, 181 A. 2d 774 (1962) as follows: Protection of the public interest has been recognized by the text writers as affording privilege to acts of interference. Prosser, Torts, p. 749, § 6.12 (1956); Restatement, Torts (2d Ed. 1955); Harper & James, The Law of Torts, § 767, comment clause (d) (1939). We are constrained to agree with the logic of that view. Our rule announced in Stebbins, supra, that bad faith is no longer an essential part of the plaintiff’s case in the tort of interference with contractual relations is in no manner modified or varied by our original opinion. Purtle and Hays, JJ., not participating.