The Virginia Business Litigation Blog
You can’t interfere with your own contract. A contract is a bargained-for exchange that may entitle you to certain benefits, like money, products, or services. If you do not realize the benefit of your bargain because the other party does not honor the agreement, you may be entitled to sue for breach of contract. What you probably cannot do, if all we’re talking about is disappointed economic expectations resulting from the failure of one party to fulfill his end of the bargain, is sue for tortious interference with contract. From the moment tortious interference became recognized as a cause of action in Virginia in 1985, the claim has been available only against strangers to the contract at issue. In other words, if the person causing the interference is a party to the contract, the appropriate claim for the plaintiff to bring is for breach of contract and not tortious interference.
Under Virginia law, a claim for tortious interference consists of the following four elements:
- the existence of a valid contractual relationship or business expectancy;
- knowledge of the relationship or expectancy on the part of the interferor;
- intentional interference inducing or causing a breach or termination of the relationship or expectancy; and
- resultant damage to the party whose relationship or expectancy has been disrupted.
(See Schaecher v. Bouffault, 290 Va. 83 (2015)). In the 1985 case of Chaves v. Johnson, the Virginia Supreme Court explained that these elements can only be asserted against someone outside the contractual relationship: