Your contractual relationships can make or break your construction business. Therefore, it’s imperative that you do what you can to protect them. While this certainly means negotiating contractual terms that are fair and favorable as well as fulfilling those obligations, it also requires you to be on the lookout for tortious interference with those contracts.
What is tortious interference?
In short, tortious interference with a contract is an intentional act aimed at undermining your contractual relationship with another party. In many of these instances, the party interfering with the contract does so in a way that induces one of the parties to the contract to breach the agreement.
For example, suppose you have a contract with Company A, but Company A has a contract with Company B, who is now thinking about entering the same market space that you occupy. If Company B threatens to stop doing business with Company A unless it breaches its contract with you to eliminate competition in its new market, Company B has likely engaged in tortious interference with a contract.
How to prove interference
If you’ve been subjected to tortious interference, you might be able to recover compensation for your damages. To do so, though, you’ll have to prove the following elements:
- You had a contract with a third party
- The defendant was aware of the contract prior to engaging in the alleged interfering behavior
- The interfering behavior was intentional
- The interference was inappropriate
- The interference led to a breach of your contract with the third-party
- You suffered damages as a result of the breach
Are you ready to fight to protect your business interests?
Interference with your contractual relationships can cause significant damage to your financial well-being and your business’s reputation. That’s why now is the time to act if you’ve been harmed by interference. If you’d like to learn more about how to appropriately approach your case, we encourage you to continue to educate yourself on this nuanced area of the law.