Court Opinion

ID: 9668529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:17:24.37706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:45.978582
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
PER CURIAM:
Both Crawford & Company and Carriers Insurance Company have filed motions for rehearing and for transfer. Both continue to argue that there is no violation of a legal duty and thus there can be no cause of action because the defendants had a statutory right to stop payment on the check. Thus, the defendants continue to refuse to recognize the principle that the duty violated in any intentional tort is the duty to avoid intentionally causing harm to another without justification.
It is not the exercise of the lawful right to stop payment which creates the tort. The opinion shows that the pleadings in this case plead that the act was done with intent to injure and without justification.
The motions also refer to language of Judge Reynolds in Loewenberg v. De Voigne, 145 Mo.App. 710, 123 S.W. 99 (1909) to the effect that no amount of bad intent can render a lawful act actionable in damages. Loewenberg is a contract action, not one in tort; and the case turns on other deficiencies in the pleadings. The statement is thus dictum in Loewenberg. The concept embodied in the language in Loew-enberg was reiterated by Judge Reynolds in a dissent in two later cases in the same court. In Wilkerson v. McGhee, 163 Mo. App. 356, 143 S.W. 1198 (1912), the dissent of Judge Reynolds relied on Loewenberg, supra, in a malicious prosecution case. The opinion in Wilkerson had adopted an earlier opinion of the Springfield Court of Appeals reported in Wilkerson v. McGhee, 153 Mo. App. 343, 134 S.W. 595 (1911). On transfer to the Supreme Court by reason of the dissent, Wilkerson v. McGhee, 265 Mo. 574, 178 S.W. 471 (1915), the court reversed on a different point, that plaintiff’s own petition showed probable cause for the prosecution, and Judge Reynolds’ dissent in the St. Louis opinion and Loewenberg are not cited.
In a later St. Louis case, State ex rel. Journal Printing Co. v. Dreyer, et al., 183 Mo.App. 463, 167 S.W. 1123 (1914), the majority of the court awarded mandamus to require the granting of a publication con*274tract to relator on the grounds the contract had been given to a competing and higher bidder for improper motives of political preference. Judge Reynolds again dissented and cited the dictum from Loewenberg.
The language of Judge Reynolds in those early cases, never accepted by a majority of the court, does not affect the opinion in the instant case.
The motions for rehearing are overruled, and the motions to transfer are denied.