Ross v. Woyan
| Decision Date | 23 December 1980 |
| Citation | 439 N.E.2d 428,1 Ohio App.3d 39 |
| Parties | , 1 O.B.R. 3 ROSS, Appellant, v. WOYAN et al.; Grange Mutual Casualty Company, Appellee. |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
1. An insurance company which willfully and intentionally interferes with the attorney-client relationship is liable to the attorney for any loss resulting therefrom.
2. A client is free to terminate his relationship with an attorney as he chooses. Once that relationship is terminated, a third party cannot be guilty of interfering with contractual relations, although the former clients may be liable to their former attorney for breach of contract or for payment for services rendered to that point.
Bell, White, Stein, Lehman & Ross and Richard M. Stein, Columbus, for appellant.
Baldwin, Menapace & Sheppard, Alan Wayne Sheppard and William A. Gardner, Columbus, for appellee.
Plaintiff-appellant, Leo P. Ross, an attorney, sued Fred and Deborah Woyan and Grange Mutual Casualty Company (Grange) for $1,501.50 for attorney's fees and expenses incurred in representing the Woyans in a personal injury action. The claim against the Woyans was for breach of contract and the claim against Grange was for causing a breach of plaintiff's contract with the Woyans. The Woyans failed to answer or defend and a default judgment was returned against them.
Grange (the appellee herein) answered, admitting that it settled the claims with the Woyans for $3,000 and that it was aware that the Woyans had at one time been represented by plaintiff. However, Grange denied any interference with contractual relations and attached a statement signed by the Woyans prior to settling with Grange, which stated that they were no longer represented by attorney Leo Ross, that Ross had been advised that he no longer represented them, and that there was no signed contract between Ross and them.
The case was tried to a jury. After presentation of all the evidence, a motion for a directed verdict and a motion to dismiss were made by Grange. The motion to dismiss was sustained and the case was dismissed.
Ross has appealed, asserting the following assignments of error:
1. "As a matter of law, the trial court committed plain and clear error, prejudicial to the appellant herein, by dismissing appellant's complaint after the close of all the evidence at trial, contravening the Ohio Rules of Civil Procedure."
2. "As a matter of law, the trial court committed plain and clear error, prejudicial to the appellant herein by directing a verdict for the appellee when there was sufficient evidence of record upon which the jury could reasonably have decided the case in appellant's favor."
The assignments of error are combined for discussion as they are interrelated. Although the trial court labeled its judgment as being based upon a motion to dismiss, it was, in reality, a directed verdict, as it was based upon the facts adduced, and is, thus, subject to the test for rendering a directed verdict.
The test for a directed verdict is stated in Civ.R. 50(A)(4), as follows:
"When a motion for a directed verdict has been properly made, and the trial court, after construing the evidence most strongly in favor of the party against whom the motion is directed, finds that upon any determinative issue reasonable minds could come to but one conclusion upon the evidence submitted and that conclusion is adverse to such party, the court shall sustain the motion and direct a verdict for the moving party as to that issue."
There is no real dispute as to the substantive law pertaining to a claim for interference with contractual relations. The test is as follows:
"One who intentionally and improperly interferes with the performance of a contract * * * between another and a third person by inducing or otherwise causing the third person not to perform the contract, is subject to liability to the other for the pecuniary loss resulting to the other from the failure of the third person to perform the contract." Restatement of Torts 2d, Section 766.
An insurance company which willfully and intentionally interferes with the attorney-client relationship is liable to the attorney for any loss resulting therefrom. Keels v. Powell (1945), 207 S.C. 97, 34 S.E.2d 482. In Keels, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that a statement of such unlawful interference in the complaint was sufficient to overcome a demurrer for failure to state a claim.
The question in this case is whether, construing all of the evidence most strongly in favor of the...
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