GWK company made motor cars and the ARM company made tyres. GWK contracted to fit all their new cars with ARM tyres and to show them with ARM tyres at trade exhibitions. On the night before a motor show in Glasgow, Dunlop employees removed the ARM tyres from two GWK cars on the exhibition and substituted Dunlop tyres. Dunlop knew of ARM’s contractual right to have their tyres displayed.
Held: Dunlop were liable. Lord Hewart CJ referred to Quinn v Leathem and said: ‘In [my] opinion the defendants knowingly committed a violation of the ARM company’s legal rights by interfering, without any justification whatever, with the contractual relations existing between them and the GWK company and [I think] that the defendants so interfered with the intention of damaging the ARM company and that the company [has] been thereby damnified.’
Lord Hewart CJ
(1926) 42 TLR 376
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Quinn v Leathem HL 5-Aug-1901
Unlawful Means Conspiracy has two forms
Quinn was treasurer of a Belfast butchers’ association. Leathem, who traded as a butcher, employed some non-union men, although when the union made difficulties he asked for them to be admitted to the union, and offered to pay their dues. The union . .
Cited by:
Cited – Douglas and others v Hello! Ltd and others; similar HL 2-May-2007
In Douglas, the claimants said that the defendants had interfered with their contract to provide exclusive photographs of their wedding to a competing magazine, by arranging for a third party to infiltrate and take and sell unauthorised photographs. . .
Cited – Secretary of State for Health and Another v Servier Laboratories Ltd and Others SC 2-Jul-2021
Economic tort of causing loss by unlawful means
The Court was asked whether the ‘dealing requirement’ is a constituent part of the tort of causing loss by unlawful means; whether a necessary element of the unlawful means tort is that the unlawful means should have affected the third party’s . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 16 July 2021; Ref: scu.251731
