Bart Schaefer wrote:
On May 5, 6:49pm, Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
}
} Alice signs a contract with Bob in which Bob agrees to paint Alice's
} house for $100.
I'm curious: Anyone know of case law in which the rest of Phillip's
example stands as is, but the contract Alice signs with Bob is to post
billboards on Jim's wall without Jim's permission?
That is, if the contract isn't legal to begin with, can Bob still be
sued for breach?
No.
If the contract isn't legal (ie: calls for things that one of the
parties cannot guarantee to produce), there is _no_ contract. Full
stop. Nobody's bound to it, let alone someone possibly getting hit with
tortious interference of an illegal contract.
In the situation at hand, I can't contract with you to "guarantee
delivery" to specific people. Unless I have a contract with those
people to accept delivery. The best I can do is contract delivery to "N
people". I then have to start delivery attempts until I manage to
achieve N people accepting delivery. I can't sue those that refuse
delivery nor their agents. I can't sue someone for their refusal to let
me trespass! If I can't achieve N people, I'm in breach - I shouldn't
have promised something I couldn't deliver, and I'm stuck with the
penalty clauses.
The other aspect is the requirement of intent and knowledge. Going back
to PHB's original scenario, Mallet can't be held under "tortious
interference" if there is no knowledge of such contract or intent to
interfere with it.
Let's try a reasonably accurate analogy please:
FlyersRealBig distributes flyers. Crotch marketing contracts with
FlyersRealBig to distribute flyers about crotch supports "throughout the
city". I live in a "gated community", and my condo fees include a fee
with CondosRUs to patrol the perimeter and prevent scruffians coming
through the gate. Especially flyer carrying scruffies. CondosRUs
engages the services of FlyerCop to use satellite lasering systems to
pinpoint FlyersRealBig scruffies so that CondosRUs security staff can
turn them away.
Is FlyerCop "tortiously interfering"? I think not. CondosRUs? Nope.
Contracts cannot impose conditions on people who aren't a party to the
contract. The recipient of the flyer, the security guards and the
services they use (the FlyerCops) are not parties to the contract, and
cannot be forced to accept delivery.
All FlyersRealBig can legitimately offer as a service is "best efforts
to deliver", _unless_ they have a contract with the recipient.
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