Failure to State A Claim

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7th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Kellie Pierce v. Zoetis, Inc. et al

Case No.: 15-1900

Officials: WOOD,Chief Judge, ROVNER, Circuit Judge, and SHAH, District Judge.

Focus: Failure to State A Claim

Appellant alleging tortious interference with a business relationship fails to state a claim.

“On appeal, Pierce presumably concedes that acts within the scope of Heuchert’s duties as her supervisor cannot provide the basis for relief. Instead, she focuses on Heuchert’s comment at the sales conference in Dallas questioning whether Pierce was sleeping with her coworker. Although the statement would presumably fall outside of the scope of Heuchert’s employment relationship with Pierce, she must still demonstrate that Heuchert committed an illegal act to achieve her end. In Levee v. Beeching, the Court of Appeals of Indiana reaffirmed that illegal conduct is an essential element in a claim for tortious interference with a business relationship, 729 N.E.2d 215, 222 (Ind. App. 2000). Although the court noted that there was no “definition or test” for demonstrating the required “‘illegal conduct,’” it concluded that defamation did not satisfy the illegal conduct element. Id. at 222–23. Although Pierce criticizes Levee for failing to cite cases in support of its conclusion, she offers no reason to believe Levee is not good law or that the Indiana Supreme Court would deviate from the appellate court’s conclusion that defamation cannot satisfy the illegal conduct element of a tortious interference claim. See, e.g., Golden v. State Farm Mut. Aut. Ins. Co., 745 F.3d 252, 255 (7th Cir. 2014) (noting that our task when sitting in diversity is to ascertain substantive content of state law as decided by the highest state court or as that court would decide the facts of the case before us). Thus, even if we assume that Heuchert’s comment at the banquet was defamatory towards Pierce and that it interfered with some valid business relationship of Pierce’s (a big assumption), her claim would still fail because Heuchert committed no illegal act.

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.