Walsh v. O'Neill
| Decision Date | 13 April 1966 |
| Citation | 215 N.E.2d 915,350 Mass. 586 |
| Parties | , 26 A.L.R.3d 673 James M. WALSH et al. v. William J. O'NEILL et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
James M. Walsh, Boston, for plaintiffs.
Edward O. Proctor, Boston, for defendant Joseph P. Healey.
Avram G. Hammer, Boston, for defendant William J. O'Neill.
Before WILKINS, C.J., and WHITTEMORE, KIRK, SPIEGEL and REARDON, JJ.
The plaintiffs have appealed from the orders of the Superior Court sustaining the demurrers of the defendants to each of the three counts of the declaration.
Count 1 alleges in relevant part as follows: the plaintiff James M. Walsh (hereinafter called the plaintiff) and the two defendants are lawyers; the plaintiff was counsel to a motor transportation corporation and had an excellent standing and reputation as a transportation lawyer; in 1960 and 1961 the corporation was charged with serious violations of the interstate commerce laws of the United States and threatened with charges of serious violations of Federal and State tax laws; the defendant Healey learned of the situation because of his confidential relationship with the plaintiff as special counsel for the corporation engaged by the plaintiff; the defendants, conspiring with each other and with others unnamed, induced the corporation to terminate its long term relationship with the plaintiff, and in furtherance of the conspiracy singly and in concert entered upon a course of conduct calculated to and which did ruin the plaintiff as a transportation lawyer; the conspiracy was accomplished by planning, manufacturing and circulating critical and libellous statements and rumors concerning the plaintiff's professional ability and his conduct before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Internal Revenue Service, by abuse of legal process and the malicious prosecution of a groundless bill in equity (No. 78,888 Equity) for an injunction in the Suffolk Superior Court, heard and decided in the plaintiff's favor, and by rash and bogus suggestions to the corporation of political influence and strong calculated suggestions of the value and possibility of the defendants' powerful political influence. The defendant O'Neill was in fact engaged as a lawyer by the corporation. The defendant Healey disclosed confidential records and information of the corporation and the plaintiff which he had obtained in his professional relationship with the plaintiff. As a result of this conduct, the plaintiff, as he avers, lost the corporation as a client and has been damaged in his ability to obtain other legal engagement.
The allegations may be more briefly stated as follows: There was a conspiracy. In the course of the conspiracy, and inferentially pursuant thereto, the defendants induced the corporation to end the plaintiff's employment. Furthering the conspiracy the defendants did things calculated to ruin the plaintiff professionally, and which did so. The conspiracy was accomplished by circulating critical and libellous statements and rumors as to the plaintiff's professional ability and conduct, by prosecuting a groundless bill in equity for an injunction knowing it to be false, and by promises of political influence and suggestions that such influence would aid in settlement of the corporation's legal troubles.
The count leaves uncertain whether there is intended a statement of (1) causes of action for injury to the plaintiff by actionable libel and abuse of process with resulting loss of a client and professional standing, or (2) a cause of action of interference with a professional relationship, or (3) all these causes of action. Thus the special and general demurrers were sustainable as to count 1 for confusing multiplicity.
Viewed, as the plaintiff urges the count should be, as an attempt to set out only a tortious interference with a professional relationship, it does not state a cause of action.
In Tauro v. General Acc. Fire & Life Assur. Corp. Ltd., 297 Mass. 234, 8 N.E.2d 773, this court held that, although the plaintiff in a tort action was known to have counsel, the act of an insurer of a defendant in that action in inducing that plaintiff to settle the claim apart from his attorney could not be found to have been unlawful interference with the contract of...
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Ronald M. Sharrow, Chartered v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 111
...have found the doctrine of tortious interference with contract not applicable to attorney-client contracts. See Walsh v. O'Neill, 350 Mass. 586, 215 N.E.2d 915 (1966); Orr v. Mutual Ben. Health & Accident Ass'n, 240 Mo.App. 236, 207 S.W.2d 511 (1947).3 Comment k to § 766 of the Restatement ......
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Christopher H. Bartle & Others 1 v. Others2
...the interference was [80 Mass.App.Ct. 381] accomplished by improper means; improper motive, alone, is not actionable. Walsh v. O'Neill, 350 Mass. 586, 589–590 & n. 1, 215 N.E.2d 915 (1966) (attorney's interference claim founded on improper motive of successor counsel was precluded on policy......
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Marks v. Struble, Civil Action No. 03-6225(MLC).
...Co., 22 Wis.2d 334, 126 N.W.2d 1, 5-6 (1964). Contra Employers Cas. Co. v. Moore, 60 Ariz. 544, 142 P.2d 414 (1943); Walsh v. O'Neill, 350 Mass. 586, 215 N.E.2d 915 (1966); Krause v. Hartford Accident & Indem. Co., 331 Mich. 19, 49 N.W.2d 41 4. The Court acknowledges defendants' claim that ......
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Sharrow v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 1352
...will suffice to create liability. Although a different rule has apparently been adopted in Massachusetts ( see Walsh v. O'Neill, 350 Mass. 586, 215 N.E.2d 915 (1966)), we see no reason why attorney-client agreements should be regarded as pariahs in the eyes of the law--why they, like most a......