Unlawful Intentional Interference with Economic Relations

Unlike perhaps in love and war, all is not fair when it comes to business conduct. Conduct that is unlawful cannot be used to damage the business of your competitor.

For instance, where a plaintiff suffers economic loss resulting from a defendant’s unlawful act against a third party, intended to target the plaintiff, the plaintiff may claim unlawful intentional interference with economic relations against the defendant directly, even though the wrongful act is committed against the third party, not the plaintiff directly.

By way of example of intentional interference with economic relations, in Grand Financial Management Inc. v. Solemio Transportation Inc., 2016 ONCA 175, the plaintiff (“Solemio”) terminated its contract with the defendant (“Grand Financial”). The defendant did not receive this termination well. Its principal threatened to put Solemio out of business, and he told one of Solemio’s customers that they would go after Solemio’s customers to get his money back. As a result, the customer stopped its business with Solemio. The court confirmed that the defendant was liable on the basis of intentional interference with economic relations, because, among other things, the defendant committed an unlawful act by intimidating one of Solemio’s customers and awarded Solemio $175,000.00.

As demonstrated above, even though the unlawful act, intimidation, was committed by Grand Financial against Solemio’s customer, Solemio was able to sue Grand Financial directly as the intimidation was intended to harm Solemio and cause it to lose business with its customer.

As such, the tort of intentional interference with economic relations has three elements:

  1. The defendant must have intended to injure the plaintiff’s economic interests. This is an intentional tort, not negligence. Causing harm negligently will not meet this element;
  2. The interference must have been by illegal or unlawful means, which is actionable by the third-party. If the act itself is not otherwise actionable, this tort does not apply; and
  3. The plaintiff must have suffered economic harm or loss as a result.

The plaintiff may claim damages for their quantifiable financial losses. In addition, if damages for this tort are difficult to measure, the plaintiff may nonetheless ask the court to award damages in an amount that is fair, once the plaintiff manages to prove the tort.

If your economic interests have been harmed by the intentional act of another party, contact Hum Law today for guidance.