B. Howard Richards, Inc. v. Shearer

Marbury, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This suit was brought in the Baltimore City Court by the appellant against the appellee. The claim for damages is based upon the allegations in the declaration that the plaintiff, a real estate brokerage corporation, had a contract with the Kaufman-Goldnamer Company, owner of No. 15 West Lexington Street, Baltimore, to receive from the company real estate commissions if the plaintiff obtained a purchaser for this business property, at a price of $130,000; that the appellant offered the property to the appellee and while negotiations were continuing, the appellee “wickedly and unlawfully contriving to injure the plaintiff by inducing the said Kaufman-Goldnamer Co. to breach its agreement with the plaintiff to pay brokerage or commissions to the said plaintiff for the sale of said property amounting to some $4,400.00 did procure the attorney of the defendant to offer said Kaufman-Goldnamer Co., without the knowledge or consent of the plaintiff, $125,000 (being approximately $130,000 less $4,400 brokerage or commission) for said property and did so purchase the same at and for said sum.” Thereby the appellant claims that it lost its ³⁸ commissions, and that the appellee is liable to it for damages in procuring the breach of its contract with the owner. The appellee filed a general issue plea, the case was tried by a jury and at the conclusion of the plaintiff’s case, a,n instructed verdict was found in favor of the appellee and a judgment entered on this verdict in favor of the appellee for costs.

From this judgment, the appeal is taken. Before the jury was sworn, the declaration was amended by interlineation, the change being to correct a date. No further pleading was filed by the appellee, and in its brief, the appellant claims that the verdict and judgment was a nullity for this reason. However, the appellant proceeded to trial voluntarily without raising the question and such action had been generally held to cure such informality in the pleadings.

Soper v. Jones, 56 Md. 503 and cases as cited. The appellant has evidently also reached the same conclusion, as its counsel specifically abandoned the point in his oral argument before this Court. The theory upon which this action is brought was first established in the English master and servant case of Lumley v. Gye, 2 El. & Bl. 216. That was a case brought by the lessee of one theatre against another theatre to recover damages for inducing a singer to break her contract to sing at the first theatre in order to sing at the second.

That case has been followed in a number of decisions in this Court involving the breach of ordinary contracts. One of these is Gore v. Condon, 87 Md. 368 , 39 A. 1042, 1044 , where the wrong alleged was the interference by the defendant, as the pretended holder of a fraudulent mortgage with the right of the plaintiff to collect rents from her tenants. The Court said that the right to maintain such an action could be sustained “upon the doctrine that a man who induces one of two parties to a contract to break it, intending thereby to injure the other, or to obtain a benefit for ³⁹ himself, does the other an actionable wrong.” Mr. William T. Brantley, the distinguished lawyer and author, who was for many years Reporter to this Court, wrote a comprehensive note to this case which is found in the appendix to 87 Md. beginning at page 739. In the case of Knickerbocker Ice Co. v. Gardiner Dairy Co., 107 Md. 556 , 69 A. 405 , the dairy company sued the ice company for causing another ice company to break a contract between it and the dairy company, as a result of which action, the dairy was unable to obtain ice from the third company and, therefore, had to purchase ice from the defendant on less advantageous terms.

In that case, Chief Judge Boyd discussed many other cases in this Court, and from other jurisdictions, and came to the conclusion that the declaration stated an actionable wrong, even if there were no express allegation of malice. See also the later cases of Knocke v. Standard Oil Co., 138 Md. 278, 282 , 113 A. 754 , and Goldman v. Harford Road Building Association, 150 Md. 677, 681 , 133 A. 843 . The difficulty in the appellant’s case is not with the law but with the facts. The evidence shows that on June 13, 1940, the Kaufman-Goldnamer Company wrote appellant a letter supplementing a previous telephone conversation, giving the appellant the exclusive