LexisNexis Q&A – Can a claim for procuring a breach of contract be brought by a party that itself is not party to the breached contract?
The question does not specify who the proposed Claimant is in this example or their relationship to the contractual parties. This note proceeds on the assumption that they are connected, for example, a Director of a company which is one of the parties to the contract. The possibility that the cause of action belonging to one of the contracting parties has been assigned to a third party has been discounted.
Without more, it cannot definitively be said that a claim for procuring a breach of contract could never be brought by anyone other than the parties to the breached contract. No authorities have been identified which show claims succeeding. Such a claim would likely face two fundamental obstacles. The first concerns the character of the law of torts. Tort: The Law of Tort (Common Law Series) says at [1.10]:
As a broad generalisation, it may be stated that liability in tort arises from:
(i) interference with the claimant’s protected interest,
(ii) caused by the defendant or someone for whose acts he is responsible,
(iii) by conduct that makes it just to require the payment of compensation by the defendant, for example, on account of his fault, and/or to entitle the claimant to an injunction safeguarding him from such injury (‘tortious conduct’).
Where the Claimant is not a party to the breached contract, it is difficult to see what protected interest of the Claimant has been interfered with.
Second, an essential ingredient of the tort of procuring breach of contract is that the Defendant’s tortious actions have caused loss to the Claimant. If the Claimant is not a party to the breached contract, it is difficult to see how they can have suffered loss arising from the tort of procuring breach of contract.
For these reasons, it seems very unlikely that a claim for procuring a breach of contract could ever be brought by a party that itself is not party to the breached contract.
LexisNexis Q&A – Phillip Patterson
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