Chambers v. Baldwin

• Decision Date: 13 January 1891
• Citation: 91 Ky. 121,15 S.W. 57
• Parties: CHAMBERS et al. v. BALDWIN.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

15 S.W. 57

91 Ky. 121

CHAMBERS et al. v. BALDWIN.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

January 13, 1891

Appeal from circuit court, Mason county.

Wall &amp Worthington and Cochran & Son, for appellants.

Wadsworth & Son, for appellee.

LEWIS J.

The cause of action stated in the petition of appellants is, in substance: That, as partners doing business under the firm name of Chambers & Marshall, they made a contract with one Wise, whereby he sold, and agreed to deliver to them in good order during delivery season of 1877, his half of a crop of tobacco, then undivided, which he had raised on shares upon the farm of appellee; in consideration whereof they promised to pay on delivery at the rate of five cents per pound. That they were ready, able, and willing to receive and pay for the tobacco as and at the time agreed on, and demanded of him compliance with the contract; but he had already delivered it to appellee and Newton Cooper, tobacco dealers, and then notified appellants he would not deliver it to them, and they might treat the contract as broken and at an end. That appellee knew of the existence of said contract, but maliciously, on account of his personal ill will to Chambers one of appellants, and with design to injure by depriving them of profit on their purchase, and to benefit himself by becoming purchaser in their stead, advised and procured Wise who would else have kept and performed, to break the contract, whereby they have been damaged $----. That he (Wise) was at the time known by appellee to be, and now is, insolvent; so, being without other redress, they bring this action. Appellee is alleged to have been actuated to do the act complained of by ill will to one of appellants only, which, however, to avoid confusion we will treat as a malicious intent to injure both; and also by a design to benefit himself by becoming purchaser of the tobacco for the firm of which he was a member. And thus two questions of law arise on demurrer to the petition: First, whether one party to a contract can maintain an action against a person who has maliciously advised and procured the other party to break it; second, whether an act lawful in itself can become actionable solely because it was done maliciously.

As appellee, being no party to the contract, did not, nor could, himself break it, his wrong, if any, was in advising and procuring the equivalent of canceling, and inducing Wise to do so. Consequently, while the remedy of appellants against him (Wise) was by action ex contractu, recovery being limited to actual damage sustained, their action against appellee is, and could be, in no other than in form ex delicto; recovery, if any at all, not being so limited. Nevertheless, in Addison on Torts (volume 1, p. 37) it is said: "Maliciously inducing a party to a contract to break his contract, to the injury of the person with whom the contract was made, creates that conjunction of wrong and damage which supports an action." The authority cited in support of the proposition thus stated, without qualification, is the English case of Lumley v. Gye, 2 El. & Bl. 228, decided in 1853, followed by Bowen v. Hall, decided in 1881, and reported in 20 Amer. Law Reg. (N. S.) 578, though it is proper to say there was a dissenting opinion in each case. The action of Lumley v. Gye was in tort, the complaint being that the defendant maliciously enticed and procured a person, under a binding contract to perform at plaintiff's theater, to refuse to perform, and abandon the contract. The majority of judges held, and the case was decided upon the theory, that remedies given by the common law in such cases are not in terms limited to any description of servants or service; and the action could be maintained upon the principle, laid down in Comyn's Digest, that, "in all cases where a man has a temporal loss or damage by the wrong of another, he may have an action upon the case to be repaired in damages." The position of Justice COLERIDGE was to the contrary,--that, as between master and servant, there was an admitted exception to the general rule of the common law confining remedies by action to the contracting parties, dating from the statute of laborers, passed in 25 Edw. III., and both on principle and authority limited by it; and that "the existence of intention, that is, malice, will in some cases be an essential ingredient in order to constitute the wrongfulness or injurious nature of the act; but it will neither supply the want of the act itself, or its hurtful consequences."

We have been referred to some American cases as being in harmony with the two cases mentioned. In Walker v. Cronin, 107 Mass. 555, it was held that where a contract exists by which a person has a legal right to continuance of service of workmen in business of manufacturing boots and shoes, and another knowingly and intentionally procures it to be violated, he may be held liable for the wrong, although he did it for the purpose of promoting his own business. But it was not alleged the defendant in that case had any such purpose in procuring the persons to leave and abandon the employment of the plaintiff; the real grievance complained of being damage by the wanton and malicious act of defendant and others. In Haskins v. Royster, 70 N.C. 601, it was held that if a person maliciously entices laborers or croppers on a farm to break their contract, and desert the service of their employer, damages may be recovered against him. But both those cases relate to rights and duties growing out of the relation of employer and persons agreeing to do labor and personal service, and do not apply here, except so far as the decisions rest upon other grounds than the statute of laborers. In Jones v. Stanly, 76 N.C. 355, it was, however, held that the same reasons which controlled the decisions rendered in Haskins v. Royster "cover every case in which one person maliciously persuades another to break any contract with a third person. ...