is clear that the procurement of the violation of a right is a cause of action in all instances where the violation is an actionable wrong, as in violations of a right to property, whether real or personal, or to personal security: he who procures the wrong is a joint wrongdoer, and may be sued, either alone or jointly with the agent, in the appropriate action for the wrong complained of. . . . He who maliciously procures a damage to another by violation of his right ought to be made to indemnify, and that whether he procures an actionable wrong or a breach of contract. He who procures the non-delivery of goods according to contract may inflict an injury, the same as he who procures the abstraction of goods after delivery; and both ought on the same ground to be made responsible. The result is that there ought to be, in my opinion, judgment for the plaintiff. WIGHTMAN, J. . . . I am of opinion that, upon the general principles upon which actions upon the case are founded, as well as upon authority, the present action is maintainable. COLERIDGE, J. [dissenting]. It may simplify what I have to say, if I first state what are the conclusions which I seek to establish. They are these: that in respect of breach of contract the general rule of our law is to confine its remedies by action to the contracting parties, and to damages directly and proximately consequential on the act of him who is sued; that, as between master and servant, there is an admitted exception; that this exception dates from the Statute of Laborers, 23 Edw. III, and both on principle and according to authority is limited by it. If I am right in these positions, the conclusion will be for the defendant, because enough appears on this record to show, as to the first, that he, and, as to the second, that Johanna Wagner, is not within the limits so drawn. Judgment for plaintiff. 834. JOHN H. WIGMORE. Interference with Social Relations. (1887. Amer. Law Rev., XXI, 770.) . . . In 1853 a new principle appeared in the doctrine of enticement. The express statutory restrictions having been lost sight of, the term servant had gradually been employed in a larger sense. The case of Lumley v. Gye now decided that the broad principle of contract was or might well be the basis of the doctrine, that interference by way of persuasion with any contractual relation was actionable. No case before had ventured to lay down so wide a principle. Bowen v. Hall1 recently affirmed it with approval. Stated most explicitly by ERLE, J., it emphasizes the interference of the defendant with a social relation. "The right of action in the master arises from the wrongful act of the defendant in procuring that the third party should break his contract by putting an end to the relation of employer and employed." "The procurement of the violation of a right is a cause of action in all instances where the violation is an actionable wrong." 1 L. R. 6 Q. B. D. 333. 835. PARLIAMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. (St. 6 Edw. VII, c. 47, § 3.) Trade Disputes Act, 1906. An act done by a person in contemplation or furtherance of a trade dispute shall not be actionable on the ground only that it induces some other person to break a contract of employment, or that it is an interference with the trade, business, or employment of some other person, or with the right of some other person to dispose of his capital or his labor as he wills. 836. BEEKMAN v. MARSTERS SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 1907 195 Mass. 205, 80 N. E. 817 THIS suit came before the single justice on the report of a master to which no exception had been taken by either party, and was reserved by him for our consideration and determination without any ruling or decision having been made. The master found that on November 21, 1906, a contract was made between the plaintiff and the Jamestown Hotel Corporation. That corporation is erecting or has erected a hotel within the grounds of the Jamestown Exposition to be held between April 26 and November 30 of this year. This hotel is known as the Inside Inn, and is to be the only hotel within the exposition grounds. The plaintiff is the proprietor of a tourist agency, having an office at 293 Washington Street, Boston. By the contract between the plaintiff and the Hotel Corporation the plaintiff agreed to represent the Hotel Corporation throughout the New England States, to establish sub-agencies in that territory, and to use every possible endeavor personally and through his agents to book persons for the Inside Inn; and the defendant agreed: "that you (the plaintiff) shall be our exclusive agent in said territory"; to pay the plaintiff twenty-five cents a day for each person sent by him to the hotel; and to furnish the plaintiff with all necessary "literature." Immediately upon being thus appointed the exclusive agent of the Hotel Corporation the plaintiff prepared and issued a “Fall Edition" of his "Tickets and Tours," in which inter alia a description is given of the Jamestown Exposition and of the Inside Inn. Following this is the statement that the plaintiff has been appointed New England agent for the exposition "and exclusive representative of the Inside Inn." The defendant is found by the master to be a ticket and tourist agent, with an office at 298 Washington Street, Boston. On January 11, 1907, he went to Norfolk, Va., and called upon the officers of the Hotel Corporation there. At this time he "had seen the contract between the complainant and the hotel corporation, but had not read it, and knew that the company had practically consummated a contract making Beekman its sole representative in New England." The defendant at this interview told these officers "that it was a mistake for the corporation to give an exclusive agency in New England to any one man, and that more business would be brought to the company if all agents were given equal terms," and to enforce his arguments stated that the business done by the plaintiff was insignificant. . . . The master found that, "as a result of the solicitations or representations made by the respondent, the Jamestown Hotel Corporation on or about January 11, 1907, entered into an oral contract with him, whereby it was agreed that the respondent should have the same rights that had been given to the complainant, and that he should be paid by the corporation twenty-five cents per capita per day per each guest whom he should secure for the Inside Inn." The defendant then wrote to all men named in the plaintiff's catalogue except those having places of business in Canada, "and two or three others who appeared to have an independent agency business," telling them that the plaintiff had not an exclusive agency for New England and suggesting to them that they could get paid on the same footing as that upon which the plaintiff and the defendant were to be paid, if they chose to act for themselves and not as sub-agents of the plaintiff. . . . The result of the findings of the master must be taken to be that the defendant induced the Hotel Corporation to break its contract with the plaintiff, but that he did not do this to spite the plaintiff or for the purpose of injuring him, but for the purpose of getting for himself (the defendant) business which the plaintiff alone was entitled to under the contract with the Hotel Corporation, that is to say, to get business which the defendant could not get if the Hotel Corporation kept its agreement with the plaintiff. LORING, J. [after stating the facts in the case as above]. Three defenses have been set up by the defendant, namely: First, that he had a right to do what he did. . . . So far as the first defence is concerned, it is in effect that, where A is under a contract to serve the plaintiff for a specified time, the defendant, knowing that contract to be in existence, is justified in hiring A away from the plaintiff before the expiration of that time, by giving him (A) higher wages if he (the defendant) thinks that to be for his (the defendant's) pecuniary benefit. The ground on which the defendant bases this contention is that he has a right to compete with the plaintiff and that the right of competition is a justification for thus hiring away the plaintiff's servant. We say that this is in effect the defense set up here because it has been settled in Massachusetts that there is no distinction between a defendant's enticing away the plaintiff's servant and a defendant's inducing a third person to break any other contract between him and the plaintiff. That was decided by this court in Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555; see p. 567. See also Moran v. Dunphy, 177 Mass. 485. In other words, this Court there adopted the conclusion reached by the majority of the judges of the Queen's Bench in Lumley v. Gye, 2 El. & Bl. 216 [supra, No. 833]. This is also the settled law of the Supreme Court of the United States. Angle v. Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway, 151 U. S. 1. And it has been affirmed in England. Bowen v. Hall, 6 Q. B. D. 333. Read v. Friendly Society of Operative Stonemasons (1902), 2 K. B. 88. Glamorgan Coal Co. v. South Wales Miners' Federation (1903), 2 K. B. 545; S. C. on appeal, sub nomine South Wales Miners' Federation v. Glamorgan Coal Co. (1905), A. C. 239. No case has been cited which holds that a right to compete justifies a defendant in intentionally inducing a third person to take away from the plaintiff his contractual rights. The argument here urged by the defendant comes from not distinguishing between two cases which not only are not the same, but are altogether different so far as the question now under consideration is concerned. If a defendant by an offer of higher wages induces a laborer who is not under contract to enter his (the defendant's) employ in place of the plaintiff's, the plaintiff is not injured in his legal rights. But it is quite a different thing if the laborer was under a contract with the plaintiff for a period which had not expired and the defendant, knowing that, intentionally induced the laborer to leave the plaintiff's employ by an offer of higher wages, to get his (the laborer's) services for his (the defendant's) benefit. A plaintiff's right to carry on business, that is, to make contracts without interference, is an altogether different right from that of being protected from interference with his rights under a contract already made. . . . There are statements in opinions in Massachusetts and in England that a defendant is not liable for interference with a plaintiff's rights in both of these two classes of cases unless he acts "maliciously" within the meaning of malice as used in these opinions. In the case at bar there was no necessity of proving spite or ill-will toward the plaintiff. . . . The defendant, with knowledge of the contract between the plaintiff and the Hotel Corporation, intentionally and without justification induced the Hotel Corporation to break it. That is proof of "malice” within the meaning of that word as used in these opinions. ... The terms of the injunction should be in substance that the defendant be restrained from directly or indirectly acting as agent of the Hotel Corporation within the New England States, and from preventing or seeking to prevent, directly or indirectly, the plaintiff from acting as exclusive agent of the Hotel Corporation for that territory. G. R. Nutter (H. F. Lyman with him), for the plaintiff. So ordered. 837. JOYCE v. GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY Co. (1907. 100 Minn. 225, 110 N. W. 975.) BROWN, J. . . . That the wrongful and malicious interference by a stranger with contract relations existing between others, by causing one to commit a breach thereof, amounts to an actionable tort, is affirmed by nearly all the Courts of the present day. The old rule that the remedy in such cases was an action against the party to the contract who committed the breach, and not against the wrongful intermeddler, is not now the law, either in this country or in England. That rule has been extended and enlarged, and an action ex delicto against the mischievous wrongdoer is now sustained by nearly all the Courts, though the old rule is still the law of some of the States. . Topic 2. Interference with Voluntary Relations 839. ANONYMOUS COMMON PLEAS. 1410 Year Book 11 H. IV, fol. 45, pl. 21 DEUX meistres de gramer scole porte brief de trespas vers un autre meister, et counte que l'ou le collacion de gramer scole de Gloucester, de temps dount le memorye ne court, appertient al priour de Lantone juxta Gloucester, le dit priour aver fait collacion as dits plaintiffs d'aver le governaunce des dytes escoles, et d'enformer les enfants etc-la, ad le defendant leve un escole en mesme le ville, par que lou les plaintiffs soloyent prendre d'un enfant par le quartier XL d. ou II s., ore ils ne preignent forsque XII d., as damage etc. Horton fist plein defens. Tillesley. Son brief ne vaut rien. Skrene. Il est bon accion sur le case, et le plaintiff ore monstre sufficient matter coment ils sount damage, par que etc. HANKFORD, J. Dampnum puit estre absque injuria. Come si iay un molin, et mon vesin leve un autre molyn, paront le profit de mon molyn est dimynuse; i'aver nul accion vers lui; encore, il est damage a moi; quod THIRNING, C. J. concessit, et dit que enformacion des enfants est chose espirituel, et si homme reteigne un meistre en son meason de enformer les enfauntes, il serra damage al comun meistre del ville; encore, ieo crey que il n'aver mye accion. . . HILL, J. Il fault foundement en cest cas de meyntayne l'accion, pur ceo que le pleintiff n'aver nul estate, mes un mistery pur le temps, et coment que un autre, que est auxibien apprys de faculty come les pleyntyfs, sount vient pur enformer les enfauntes, c'est vertuous et charitable chose et ease al people, pur que il ne puit estre punye par nostre ley par que.. Et l'oppinion de Court fuit que le brief ne gist mye, par que fuit agarde que ils ne presteront ryens, etc. |