Well, again, wouldn't NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware be pretty
squarely on point here? If one could campaign to get people to shun their
neighbors for simply shopping at white-owned stores, I would think that one
could campaign to get a professor fired for a wide variety of actions and
statements. (It's possible that the matter might be different if the firing
would be illegal, but I doubt that even that should affect the analysis -
especially if the firing, if done, would be done by a government official who
is presumably unlikely to be incited to imminent illegal conduct.)
Eugene
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Scarberry, Mark
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 11:45 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: IIED applied to speech that violates a content-neutral restriction
We're beginning to move fairly far away from law & religion, but I wonder what
list members think of the tort of intentional interference with contractual
relations (IICR). A campaign to get a person fired could be seen as an
interference with contractual relations. Is the public concern point relevant
to whether such speech may be made tortious? Or, assuming Prof. A is at a
public university, is there a constitutionally-based privilege to try for
whatever reason to have a government employee fired (perhaps on a petition for
redress of grievances theory)?
I realize that there is authority that the tort of IICR requires that the
defendant prevented performance or made the performance of the contract more
difficult, but there is also authority, as I understand it, for a broader
interpretation of IICR:
"The elements which a plaintiff must plead to state the cause of action for
intentional interference with contractual relations are (1) a valid contract
between plaintiff and a third party; (2) defendant's knowledge of this
contract; (3) defendant's intentional acts designed to induce a breach or
disruption of the contractual relationship; (4) actual breach or disruption of
the contractual relationship; and (5) resulting damage." (Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. v. Bear Stearns & Co. (1990) 50 Cal.3d 1118, 1126 [270 Cal.Rptr.
1, 791 P.2d 587], internal citations omitted) (from
http://www.justia.com/trials-litigation/docs/caci/2200/2201.html).
Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine
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