Economic Harm Torts Project Reporter Ward Farnsworth discusses interference with economic relationships in the video below.

This spring I’ll be presenting work on the law governing interference with contract or related topics, interference with economic relationships, sometimes relationships that have not yet ripened into contracts. It’s a complex topic because the interaction with contract law is right there on the surface. When is it a tort to interfere with somebody else’s contract?

This is an area that was covered in the second restatement in a way that I did not find very clear and I think most courts didn’t find very clear. They said that it’s a tort to interfere with a contract or with a non-contractual relationship when the interference is improper. Improper was defined by a seven-factor test. It was very unwieldy. Courts have found their way to much great clarity than the second restatement did, and this project is seeking to capture the best of what the courts have said and found.

– Ward Farnsworth